Research Catalog

Title

Reading the world : encyclopedic writing in the scholastic age / Mary Franklin-Brown.

Author

Franklin-Brown, Mary.

Publication

Chicago ; London : The University of Chicago Press, [2012]

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xxii, 446 pages : illustrations; 24 cm

Summary

The thirteenth century saw such a proliferation of new encyclopedic texts that more than one scholar has called it the "century of the encyclopedias." Variously referred to as a speculum, thesaurus, or imago mundi--the term encyclopedia was not commonly applied to such books until the eighteenth century--these texts were organized in such a way that a reader could easily locate a collection of authoritative statements on any given topic. Because they reproduced, rather than simply summarized, parts of prior texts, these compilations became libraries in miniature. In this groundbreaking study, Mary Franklin-Brown examines writings in Latin, Catalan, and French that are connected to the encyclopedic movement: Vincent of Beauvais's Speculum maius; Ramon Llull's Libre de meravelles, Arbor scientiae, and Arbre de filosofia d'amor; and Jean de Meun's continuation of the Roman de la Rose. Franklin-Brown analyzes the order of knowledge in these challenging texts, describing the wide-ranging interests, the textual practices--including commentary, compilation, and organization--and the diverse discourses that they absorb from preexisting classical, patristic, and medieval writing. She also demonstrates how these encyclopedias, like libraries, became "heterotopias" of knowledge--spaces where many possible ways of knowing are juxtaposed. But Franklin-Brown's study will not appeal only to historians: she argues that a revised understanding of late medievalism makes it possible to discern a close connection between scholasticism and contemporary imaginative literature. She shows how encyclopedists employed the same practices of figuration, narrative, and citation as poets and romanciers, while much of the difficulty of the imaginative writing of this period derives from a juxtaposition of heterogeneous discourses inspired by encyclopedias. With rich and innovative readings of texts both familiar and neglected, Reading the World reveals how the study of encyclopedism can illuminate both the intellectual work and the imaginative writing of the scholastic age.--

Subjects

• Arbre de ciència (Llull, Ramon)
• Literature, Medieval > History and criticism
• Roman de la Rose (Jean, de Meun)
• Jean, de Meun, approximately 1240-approximately 1305 > Roman de la rose
• Llull, Ramon, 1232?-1316 > Arbre de ciència
• Encyclopedias and dictionaries > History and criticism
• Llull, Ramon, 1232?-1316 > Libre de meravelles
• Vincent, of Beauvais, -1264 > Speculum majus
• Criticism, interpretation, etc
• Speculum majus (Vincent, of Beauvais)

Genre/Form

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 393-421) and index.

Contents

The archive -- The book of the world : encyclopedism and scholastic ways of knowing -- The order of the encyclopedia -- Narrative and natural history : the organization of the Speculum maius -- The obscure figures of the encyclopedia : tree paradigms in the Arbor scientiae -- Metaphor in the mirror of nature: nature's speech in the Roman de la rose -- Heterotopias -- A fissured mirror : the Speculum maius as heterotopia -- The phoenix in the mirror : the encyclopedic subject.

Call Number

JFE 12-7150

ISBN

• 9780226260686
• 0226260682

LCCN

2011044420

OCLC

756577783

Author

Franklin-Brown, Mary.

Title

Reading the world : encyclopedic writing in the scholastic age / Mary Franklin-Brown.

Publisher

Chicago ; London : The University of Chicago Press, [2012]

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 393-421) and index.

Research Call Number

JFE 12-7150