Description
Book SynopsisThe majority of medieval and sixteenth-century Iberian manuscripts, whether in Latin, Hebrew, Arabic, Spanish, or Aljamiado (Spanish written in Arabic script), contain fragments or are fragments. The term fragment is used to describe not only isolated bits of manuscript material with a damaged appearance, but also any piece of a larger text that was intended to be a fragment. Investigating the vital role these fragments played in medieval and early modern Iberian manuscript culture, Heather Bamford’s Cultures of the Fragment is focused on fragments from five major Iberian literary traditions, including Hispano-Arabic and Hispano-Hebrew poetry, Latin and Castilian epics, chivalric romances, and the literature of early modern crypto-Muslims.
The author argues that while some manuscript fragments came about by accident, many were actually created on purpose and used in a number of ways, from binding materials, to anthology excerpts, and some fragments were even
Trade Review
"This is an original approach to a wide variety of texts produced in medieval and early modern Iberia that opens up interesting questions and lines of investigation, with a number of sparkling insights left for further exploration." -- Simone Pinet, Cornell University * Speculum *
"Such a study in English that discusses many of the unique factors of manuscript and book culture in medieval and early modern Iberia is rare." -- Michelle M. Hamilton, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities * University of Toronto Quarterly: Letters in Canada 2018 *
Table of Contents
List of Figures Acknowledgments Introduction 1 Fragment and Fragmentary in the Iberian Epic 2 From Bound to Metonym: Early Modern and Modern Disuse of Chivalric Fragments 3 Used to Pieces: The Muwashshahas and Their Romance Kharjas from Al-Andalus to Cairo 4 Faith in Fragments 5 The Fragment among the Moriscos: Mohanmad de Vera’s Culture of Compilation Afterword Appendices 1 Breviario Sunni , chapter 22; De Vera, chapter 9 2 Breviario Sunni , chapter 14; De Vera, chapter 9 3 Breviario Sunni , chapter 12; De Vera, chapter 10 4 Breviario Sunni , chapter 11; De Vera, chapter 10 5 BNM 4871; De Vera, chapter 44 6 De Vera, chapter 18; BNM 4871 7 End of De Vera’s Treatise Notes Bibliography Index
