1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910809344403321

Autore

Ghosh Shami

Titolo

Writing the barbarian past : studies in early medieval historical narrative / / Shami Ghosh

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Leiden, Netherlands : , : Brill, , 2016

©2016

ISBN

90-04-30581-5

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (xiii, 315 pages)

Collana

Brill's Series on the Early Middle Ages : Continuation of the Transformation of the Roman World, ; Volume 24

Disciplina

940.12072

Soggetti

Germanic peoples - History - To 1500 - Historiography

Germanic peoples - History - To 1500

Narration (Rhetoric) - History - To 1500

Historiography - History - To 1500

Oral tradition - History - To 1500

Ethnicity in literature

Latin literature, Medieval and modern - History and criticism

Germanic literature - History and criticism

Middle Ages - Historiography

Middle Ages

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Preliminary Material -- Introduction -- The Gothic Histories of Jordanes and Isidore -- The Origins of the Franks -- Paul the Deacon and the Ancient History of the Lombards -- A ‘Germanic’ Hero in Latin and the Vernacular: Waltharius and Waldere -- Looking Back to a Troubled Past: Beowulf and Anglo-Saxon Historical Consciousness -- Vernacular Oral Tradition and The ‘Germanic’ Past -- Conclusions -- Bibliography -- Index.

Sommario/riassunto

Writing the Barbarian Past examines the presentation of the non-Roman, pre-Christian past in Latin and vernacular historical narratives composed between c.550 and c.1000: the Gothic histories of Jordanes and Isidore of Seville, the Fredegar chronicle, the Liber Historiae



Francorum , Paul the Deacon’s Historia Langobardorum , Waltharius , and Beowulf ; it also examines the evidence for an oral vernacular tradition of historical narrative in this period. In this book, Shami Ghosh analyses the relative significance granted to the Roman and non-Roman inheritances in narratives of the distant past, and what the use of this past reveals about the historical consciousness of early medieval elites, and demonstrates that for them, cultural identity was conceived of in less binary terms than in most modern scholarship.