We know and have studied for long (at least since Zumthor’s Essai de poétique médiévale) that medieval literature is eminently 'variant', that the different copies of same works show a permanent instability or 'mouvance' even in those cases in which we consider that the texts are fairly stable. No copy is identical to its predecessor. It is easy to identify and even to interpret when a certain passage is completely different in two copies. But what is difficult for us is to understand how exactly variance works when the copies say basically the same. Which are the phenomena, which could be the principles underlying them, how can we understand the process, can we even measure it? These and other questions will be risen in the lecture. Whether it will achieve answers remains to be seen.
Organisateurs : Thomas Mohnike (tmohnike[at]unistra.fr) & Marie-Sophie Winter (marie-sophie.winter[at]u-picardie.fr)
Conference in english
