Cento-Texts in the Making

Manuel Baumbach (Ed.)

Cento-Texts in the Making. Aesthetics and Poetics of Cento-Techniques from Homer to Zong!

ISBN 978-3-86821-945-6, 296 S., 3 Abb., geb., € 45,00 (2022)

(BAC - Bochumer Altertumswissenschaftliches Colloquium, Bd. 109)

Cento-texts represent an extreme case of intertextuality. In gathering material from different sources and weaving it together they form a patchwork, which is in constant dialogue with the literary tradition. The different components can take on new meanings and, at the same time, refer back to their original contexts. This interdisciplinary volume explores different cento-techniques from Antiquity to the present day. It focusses upon poetological reflections, which are often linked with or even inscribed in the usage of cento-techniques, and it takes into account varied understandings of cento-writings in the history of reception. The contributions compare different cultural traditions and approach cento-techniques from an aesthetical point of view. They examine questions of authorship, authorization and fragmentarization. They ask which metaphors or concepts are used to describe cento-techniques (e.g. bees, weaving, hooking, bricolage), and they discuss the poiesis of cento-texts in the Aristotelian sense of 'being made'. The arrangement of the contributions in this volume is centonic insofar they are neither ordered chronologically nor according to specific topics. Rather, they form a patchwork, which invites the reader to compare different methodological approaches of dealing with cento-texts from Homer to Zong!

Buchvorschau / Inhaltsverzeichnis (pdf)