Sapientia – Eloquentia:
Studies on the Function of Liturgical Poetry in Monastic and Scholastic Cultures in Mediaeval Europe
Riksbankens Jubileumsfond. Kulturvetenskapliga donationen 2000-5116:01 (www.rj.se)
Project leader: Professor Gunilla Iversen; Gunilla.Iversen@klassiska.su.se
Final Report 11th October 2006 (pdf)
The ”Sapientia-project” is based at the Institute of Classical Languages, Stockholm University, and is carried out by researchers from Stockholm University and Södertörn University College in close collaboration with researchers from Paris, London, Leeds and Copenhagen. The project works in close connection with already existing international and Nordic research networks.
Within the project two doctoral dissertations are in preparation to be published as well two planned volumes with contributions by the project members, ‘Sapientia et eloquentia’, (Studia latina Stockholmiensia), and ‘La parole chantée’ (Brépols). In addition several separate articles tied to the project have been published or are forthcoming.
Background
When studying how the poetical experience has been explained and treated in Western culture, it becomes evident that poetry has not always been perceived of as a genre among many but as a basic experience of the human condition. This experience is the human discovery of itself in the presence of the ineffable. Poetry and mysticism, poetry and the divine, poetry and silence, poetry and transcendence, constitute, consequently, important conceptual fields in this kind of research. In the presence of the ineffable it is possible to pronounce words, which in themselves preserve the ineffable (poetry), or to transcend them to explanatory words (poetics). This tension forms a central part of the Christian tradition and received its fundamental expressions in the medieval culture.
Furthermore, the relation between theory and practice, between, on the one hand, poetics and music theory and, on the other hand, the poetry and music actually created and performed in this transitional period, is still practically un-investigated. It is not until fairly recently that the international need for new studies on the relationships between poetics and poetry, between music and music theory from both these periods in our medieval cultural history, has become apparent.
The aim of the project
The intention of the project is to explore and shed further light on the changes in the views on the function and form of poetry and the relationship between poetry and music in theory and practice, that begin to take place in the transition from a monastic, meditative culture to a new, scholastic and systematic culture in twelfth century Europe. Obviously, the function of poetry and its ideal form was governed by a completely different set of criteria in the monastic culture up to the tenth and eleventh centuries than what came to be the norm in the scholastically influenced culture from the latter part of the twelfth century.
The aim of the project is twofold. On the one hand, it aims to systematically examine and, in a series of editions and comparative studies present and analyse medieval interpretations and commentaries of the liturgical “functional poetry”, belonging mainly to a monastic and pre-scholastic culture and to the poetical genres which, in the medieval library, were placed and catalogued among the libri divini. On the other hand, there will also be editions of commentaries and glosses to sequences, as well as presentations and analyses of the poetry and the poetics that belonged to the libri liberales among works of the classical Roman writers and the early church fathers, which were studied within the framework of the Artes liberales.
Members of the project:
- Gunilla Iversen (GI), Professor Dr. Project leader, Institutionen för klassiska språk, Stockholm University, Sweden.
- Alexander Andrée (AA), MA, Doktoral student, Institutionen för klassiska språk, Stockholm University, Sweden.
- Nicolas Bell (NB), Dr., Curator, Music Collections, The British Library, London, UK.
- Marcia Cavalcante Scuback (MCS), Docent, Ass. Professor, Filosofiska institutionen, Södertörns Högskola (Södertörn University College), Sweden
- Marie-Noël Colette (M-NC), Prof. Dr., Directeur d'Etudes, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Section des Sciences Historiques et Philologiques, Sorbonne, Paris, France.
- William Flynn (WF), Dr. Reader, Center for Medieval Studies, University of Leeds, UK
- Erika Kihlman (EK), MA, Doktoral student, Institutionen för klassiska språk, Stockholm University, Sweden.
- Nils-Holger Petersen (NHP), Professor Dr, Leader of the Center for the Study of the Cultural Heritage of Medieval Rituals, Det teologiske Fakultet, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
Uppdaterad: 2008-06-23