ReMedIt · Between rediscovery and recreation: Renaissance accounts of medieval Italian vernacular literary tradition (1476-1530)
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2019-09-01 → 2021-08-31
- EU contribution
- €212,934
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-EF-ST
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Between rediscovery and recreation: Renaissance accounts of medieval Italian vernacular literary tradition (1476-1530)
Today the literary canon of the Italian medieval vernacular tradition – with Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio in primary positions – is so well established as to seem unquestionable. Nevertheless, canon formation, like all cultural processes, has changed throughout the centuries, and probably the most decisive period is 1470-1530. However, very little work has been done on the different evaluations of the previous literary tradition, and studies on the Renaissance reception of medieval authors tend to focus on how some select writers were regarded, not on the different historical reconstructions of preceding literary history. As a result, we lack a fuller history of how the vernacular tradition was constructed and of the underlying processes of canon formation. The project ReMedIt (Between rediscovery and recreation: Renaissance accounts of medieval Italian vernacular literary tradition [1476-1530]) aimed at addressing this knowledge gap reconstructing the evolving Renaissance views, judgments and uses of the medieval vernacular literary tradition in Italy during the period that lead to the formation of an established canon of authors. This was the first full-scale, monographic project to focus on the Renaissance reception of the medieval poetic tradition, and in particular the extensive earlier lyric tradition before Petrarch (c. 1230-c. 1330). The project analysed and compared multiple fragmentary accounts of medieval literary history and considered these viewpoints in tandem with the contemporary recovery process of the medieval lyrical tradition. At the same time, analysis was undertaken of collections of edited verse in manuscript and print form, and to some extent this was complemented by study of the likely influence of the medieval lyrical tradition on select Renaissance lyric poets active in the chosen timeframe.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
ReMedIt aims to provide the first historical reconstruction of the evolution of views on the medieval Italian vernacular literary tradition in Italy during the period that leads to the formation of an established canon of vernacular literary authors (1476-1530). The project focuses on the reception of the poetic tradition, in particular the extensive Italian lyric tradition (c. 1230-c. 1330) preceding Petrarch, one encompassing over two hundred authors. The project interrogates three main interrelated research strands: 1) the differing value judgements concerning the vernacular poetic past before Petrarch, both implicit ones (such as the selection of poets, their ordering, and the amount of attention afforded them in different poetic anthologies) and explicit comments and judgements; 2) the complex processes – material, interpretative, exegetical and cultural – that bring about the recovery of the medieval lyric tradition and generate knowledge related to it; and 3) the literary influence that this tradition exercised upon verse production during the same period 1476-1530 in the output of nine authors. In order to reconstruct the differing views regarding the genesis and historical development of the earlier Italian literary tradition, the project offers a novel interdisciplinary approach. It does this by integrating the study of how Renaissance poets were influenced by thirteenth- and fourteenth-century authors with an assessment of their critical reception and of the contemporary processes of recovery of their texts. In doing so, ReMedIt will offer a fuller and enriched understanding of this seminal period in the development of the history and codification of the vernacular literary tradition, thereby providing a case study that will be valuable for the study of other national literatures. Through a carefully constructed training-through-research programme the experienced researcher will expand her research interests broadening her chronological range.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD · OxfordCoordinatorUnited Kingdom
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union