Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations and MS Sigla
- Introduction
- 1 Authorial Changeovers in the Manuscripts
- 2 Distinguishing Continuations, Sequels and Ends
- 3 The First Continuation and Prolongation
- 4 The Second Continuation and the Imitative Mode
- 5 The Gerbert and Manessier Continuations: Interpolation vs. Conclusion
- Conclusion
- Appendices
- Bibliography
- Index
- ARTHURIAN STUDIES
1 - Authorial Changeovers in the Manuscripts
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations and MS Sigla
- Introduction
- 1 Authorial Changeovers in the Manuscripts
- 2 Distinguishing Continuations, Sequels and Ends
- 3 The First Continuation and Prolongation
- 4 The Second Continuation and the Imitative Mode
- 5 The Gerbert and Manessier Continuations: Interpolation vs. Conclusion
- Conclusion
- Appendices
- Bibliography
- Index
- ARTHURIAN STUDIES
Summary
This chapter will take each manuscript in turn and discuss how it manages its Perceval-related contents in order to glean clues from the mise en page as to scribal perceptions and contemporary reader reception of the Continuations. This will involve a detailed cataloguing of what features are perceptible specifically at the ‘traditional’ changeover points of the various Continuations: these include – judging from the disposition of divisions of texts in multi-text manuscripts – changes of hand, large (possibly illuminated/historiated/gilded/ornamented) capitals, explicits, rubrics, breaks in the text, new quires and headings, among various other possibilities. I will also consider the illumination/pictorial styles and/or rubrication present in the manuscripts from one text to the next, and cross-reference the manuscripts as appropriate to show if any agreements or correlations, either illustrative or textual, may be determined. Eventually, such an enterprise should demonstrate whether or not a specific pattern of devices was used by the book production profession in the reproduction of Perceval and its Continuations, and whether the practices of this changed over time or according to workshop. As suggested, this analysis – relating to the habits of scribes, manuscript planners and indeed readers – will then inform the subsequent textual analysis of the same texts, at which point I shall specifically explore what the narratives themselves can tell us about the authorial composition of Continuations. I provide descriptions of all the manuscripts which contain Perceval and/or one or more of the Continuations.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The 'Continuations' of Chrétien's 'Perceval'Content and Construction, Extension and Ending, pp. 21 - 56Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2012