| Abstract | Paper -a:
Starting from Olsen's runic reconstruction of the 'níðstöng' composed by Egill, as it appears in the Egill's saga, I claim to have discovered another poem encrypted in the depths of the runic series. This poem I have managed to reconstruct in what I would consider its original form, carefully respectful of its essential formal and rhetorical items. The encrypted poem constitutes the ground on which some narrative elements of the prosa context have been constructed.
Paper -b:
During the 14th century, Italian humanists such as Albertino Mussato, Francesco Petrarca, and Coluccio Salutati, inspired by classical conceptions of vatic inspiration, claimed for poetry a sacred status that rivaled Scripture. God spoke in the language of poetry. Their arguments brought on a series of polemical attacks, mainly from Dominican theologians intent on maintaining firm boundaries between sacred and secular writing, which in turn brought on further responses from these humanists. This paper will examine the extent to which the supporters of poetry drew on medieval conceptions of Biblical prophecy to shape their defenses, even as they looked to classical examples. Particularly significant is the role played by the figure of David, model of a true poet-prophet.
Paper -c:
The slaughter of the Jews of Prague at Easter 1389 stimulated the creation of many texts. While the event itself remains unreachable, by their own virtue the texts provide us with valuable understanding of medieval anti-Jewish violence. Central to the textual corpus about Easter 1389 are three textual units collectively known as the Passio Iudeorum Pragensium. Although they display a striking unity, they cannot be treated as variations of a single text. Instead, together with other texts inspired by the experience of 1389, they provide various modes of handling a problematic past, its re-evaluation, re-examination, re-writing and re-usage; they disclose some of the possibilities that medieval texts offered to their writers and users.
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