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Quotation, Form, and Didacticism: The ‘Breviari d’Amor’, ‘Der Renner’, and the ‘Vita nova’

From the book Prodesse et delectare

  • David Murray

Abstract

This essay examines the conflict between the use of quotation as an authorizing technique and the disruptive effects it has on textual unity by considering how three texts (the ‘Breviari d’Amor’, the ‘Renner’, and the ‘Vita nova’) manipulate and attempt to overcome this tension in didactic contexts. Referring to modern critical and literary theory as well as medieval conceptions of textual authority, I suggest that emphasizing the literariness and the formal workings of these texts allows a more descriptive approach to didacticism that more closely integrates it with other literary modes. I thereby question the tendency to separate didactic works from belles-lettres, and instead propose a spectrum of varying engagements with authorial and pedagogical techniques without allowing these alone to categorize a literary work.

© 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Munich/Boston
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