![]() ![]() 7 Still, the lack of any survival of an authentic minstrel text is surprising, and it leaves the student of medieval popular literature on shaky ground, reliant on post-medieval minstrel manuscripts, or depictions in fiction, or speculations based on texts with supposed ‘oral’ markers. What place is there for the storyteller when prosthetic technologies of the archive encroach on their terrain? How can a jongleur keep the cup passing round when private houses could have their own minstrels with nothing more than a book and a single literate individual? 6 Walter Benjamin’s periodized narrative of the decline of the storyteller, of the traveller’s tall tales eclipsed by the informatics of the novel, of communal entertainment giving way to the solitude of private reading, might be said to find compressed and localized expression in the literary milieu of later medieval England. ![]() Indeed, the rise of the vernacular literary manuscript across the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries may well have been seen as competition. What we can surmise about medieval oral culture is that it was founded in community and survived through memory, either by convention or necessity, or both: if performers were usually unlearned peasants, possibly even illiterate, and they made their bread in the markets of live performance, there might have been little point investing in the materials of the book. After all, oral literature, by definition, does not depend on a material medium for its existence or transmission. 5 Perhaps, some might find this state of affairs not too surprising. Many medieval works contain ‘oral’ or ‘minstrel’ tags, which address or otherwise refer to a live audience, yet all supposed ‘oral’ literature survives in manuscripts that have no demonstrable, obvious, or sometimes even plausible connections to authentic oral culture. 4 Literary texts are peppered with descriptions of minstrelsy and performing minstrel characters, yet no single text survives that we can confidently tether to a medieval minstrel, as composer, owner, or performer. 2 Records survive, including accounts of payments issued, that reference real-life medieval minstrels, harpours, gestours, and rimours, 3 yet aside from first names, instruments played, and very occasionally places of association, little evidence of their lives or work exists in written record. 1 It is a serious lacuna, a major category of lost literature. If you have specific questions or information about content, the website, and applications, please contact us.More than 30 years have passed since the publication of Andrew Taylor’s ‘The Myth of the Minstrel Manuscript’, and in that time we have seen no fresh claims to the discovery or identification of a single medieval English manuscript with plausible connections to an actual medieval minstrel. However, Get Archive LLC does not own each component of the compilation displayed and accessible on the PICRYL website and applications. Get Archive LLC is the owner of the compilation of content that is posted on the PICRYL website and applications, which consists of text, images, audio, video, databases, tags, design, codes, and software ("Content"). Get Archive LLC does not charge permission and license fees for use of any of the content on PICRYL, however, upon request, GetArchive can provide rights clearance for content for a fee. GetArchive believes there are no usage restrictions or limitations put on content in the U.S. ![]() Permission for use, re-use, or additional use of the content is not required. Get Archive LLC, creator of PICRYL, endeavors to provide information that it possesses on the copyright status of the content and to identify any other terms and conditions that may apply to the use of the content, however, Get Archive LLC offers no guarantee or assurance that all pertinent information is provided, or that the information is correct in each circumstance. PICRYL makes the world's public domain media fun to find and easy to use. PICRYL is an AI-driven search & similarity engine. PICRYL is the largest media source for public domain images, scans, and documents. The World's Largest Public Domain Media Search Engine ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |