>You may want to look at the work of Robert D. Stevick in this regard. For
example,
>_The Earliest Irish and English Bookarts_ (University of Pennsylvania,
1994), ISBN
>0812232208. The same mathematical ratios Stevick describes with respect to
page
>layout are discussed by David Howlett with respect to the composition of
insular
>Latin prose and exegesis. Howlett, editor of the Oxford Dictionary of
Medieval
>Latin, has published widely on the subject.
To add some comments and some more biblio Stephen's note: the ratios, or at
least some of them, are the same, but the essential difference is that
Stevick discovers them where they are to be expected, i.e. in the
geometrical design of manuscript page and illuminations, where they
structure *space*, whereas Howlett believes to detect them in the way how
quantities of letters, syllables, words, "lines" and chapters are arranged
and intersected throughout biblical and other texts. And this latter
approach is at odds with the exegetic practice as documented profusely by
glosses, commentaries and other exegetic sources, where the number of
letters, words, syllables, lines and chapters played only a very marginal
role, if any, and where Howletts geometrical and musical ratios played
practically no role at all in the analysis of textual numbers. The
compositional practice which he postulates and investigates is labeled
"biblical style" by him, and according to him it is responsible for the
structure of all or most biblical texts (in Hebrew, Greek, Latin) and was
practiced by patristic and medieval (esp. insular) writers in imitation of
the Bible. But hee does not mind that the exegetical sources -- often
written by the same authors which he regards as practicing "biblical style"
-- never mention and confirm his understanding of "biblical style" and even
express an entirely different understanding of (very different) numbers in
biblical texts, which Howlett himself despises as "numerology" and to which
he recurs only occasionally and reluctantly. Those who are interested in
the methodological issues involved can find them frequently discussed in
the archives of AnSax-L, at the following address:
http://www.mun.ca/Ansaxdat/
Now the biblio:
STEVICK Robert D.
The earliest Irish and English bookarts: visual and poetic
forms before A.D. 1000. Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania
Press, 1994, xiv+282 pp.
HOWLETT David R.
Biblical Style in Early Insular Latin. In: *Sources of
Anglo-Saxon Culture, ed. Paul E. Szarmach, Kalamazoo:
Western Michigan University, 1986 (= Studies in Medieval
Culture, 20), p.127-147
HOWLETT David R.
Liber epistolarum Sancti Patricii episcopi / The book of
letters of Saint Patrick the Bishop. Dublin: Four Courts
Press, 1994, 134 pp.
HOWLETT David R.
The English Origins of Old French Literature. Dublin: Four
Courts Press, 1995, x+180 pp.
HOWLETT David R.
The Celtic Latin tradition of biblical style. Dublin: Four
Courts Press, 1995, viii+400 pp.
HOWLETT David R.
British Books in Biblical Style. Dublin: Four Courts Press,
1997
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Otfried Lieberknecht, Schoeneberger Str. 11, D-12163 Berlin
phone & fax: ++49 30 8516675, E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Homepage for Dante Studies:
http://members.aol.com/lieberk/welcome.html
Listowner of Italian-Studies:
http://www.mailbase.ac.uk/lists/italian-studies/
Listowner of Medieval-Religion:
http://www.mailbase.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion/
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|