Periodic Reporting for period 4 - NovelEchoes (Novel Echoes. Ancient Novelistic Receptions and Concepts of Fiction in Late Antique and Medieval Secular Narrative from East to West)
Période du rapport: 2023-11-01 au 2025-04-30
The novel is today the most popular literary genre worldwide. This project has contributed to (re-)writing its early history. It has provided the first comprehensive reconstruction and interpretation of receptions of ancient novels (1st-4th centuries AD) in (Greek, Syriac and western vernacular) secular narrative from Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages (4th-12th centuries). Novel Echoes followed up from the ERC Starting Grant project Novel Saints (on hagiography).
This project pursued and validated the hypothesis that different secular, narrative traditions between the 4th and 12th centurie AD were impacted (directly or indirectly) by ancient novels and adopted (and adapted) them to various degrees and purposes; and that, since the ancient novel is a genre defined by its own fictionality, such reception in later narrative often impacts notions of truth and authentication in ways that other (often more authoritative) literary models (e.g. Homer and the Bible) do not.
Novel Echoes struck a balance between breadth and depth by envisaging three objectives:
1. the creation of an online database that charts for the first time all types of intertextual references and allusions to ancient novels both in hagiography and in secular narrative from Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages (4th-12th cent.) and (2) all testimonia of ancient novels in the same period (from casual, short references in epigrams and rhetorical treatises to full-fledged treatises on specific novels).
2. the in-depth study of particular sets of texts and the analysis of their implicit conceptualizations of truth, authentication, fiction and narrative;
3. the reconstruction of routes of transmission in both the West and the East.
This project pursued and validated the hypothesis that different secular, narrative traditions between the 4th and 12th centurie AD were impacted (directly or indirectly) by ancient novels and adopted (and adapted) them to various degrees and purposes; and that, since the ancient novel is a genre defined by its own fictionality, such reception in later narrative often impacts notions of truth and authentication in ways that other (often more authoritative) literary models (e.g. Homer and the Bible) do not.
Novel Echoes struck a balance between breadth and depth by envisaging three objectives:
1. the creation of an online database that charts for the first time all types of intertextual references and allusions to ancient novels both in hagiography and in secular narrative from Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages (4th-12th cent.) and (2) all testimonia of ancient novels in the same period (from casual, short references in epigrams and rhetorical treatises to full-fledged treatises on specific novels).
2. the in-depth study of particular sets of texts and the analysis of their implicit conceptualizations of truth, authentication, fiction and narrative;
3. the reconstruction of routes of transmission in both the West and the East.
The project has constructed an online database that charts for the first time all types of intertextual references and allusions to ancient novels both in hagiography and in secular narrative from Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages (4th-12th cent.) and (2) all testimonia of ancient novels in the same period (from casual, short references in epigrams and rhetorical treatises to full-fledged treatises on specific novels).
The project has considerably broadened the scope of reception studies of ancient novels by identifying and discussing several hitherto unknown or disregarded references to ancient novels in later texts. It has thus shown that the reception of the ancient novel in late Antiquity and the Middle Ages up to the 12th century is significantly more extensive than previously believed. Our work has identified specific genres, authors, eras and regions of particular interest and highlighted and documented the presence and significance of ancient novels in contexts where they have traditionally been either insufficiently explored or completely overlooked altogether. We have thus demonstrated the circulation and sustained popularity of ancient novels throughout the millennium following their composition, well before their 12th-century revival.
The project has unearthed new material and filled lacunae in scholarship through a number of in-depth studies ranging from Byzantine literary criticism and florilegia to Old French romance, Syriac rhetorical theory, hagiography in western and eastern traditions, and epistolography. It combined manuscript research, intertextuality, close reading, both ancient and modern literary criticism and rhetorical studies both to provide new interpretations of late antique and medieval narrative texts that are impacted by ancient novels, and to identify modes of circulation and routes of transmission of ancient Greek novels into the Middle Ages. This had led to new insights into where and how ancient novels were read and how concepts of fiction shaped narrative in Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages.
In addition, the project placed the study of the reception of the ancient novel on a methodologically improved footing and provided new methodological paradigms for exploring the reception of novelistic fiction in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages.
Finally, the project has produced several critical text editions of previously unpublished narrative texts.
The project members have disseminated their findings to academic audiences worldwide in a series of conference papers and academic publications (monographs, edited volumes, journal articles, book chapters and an online database). The dissemination to non-academic audiences has taken several forms: contributions to (written) media, popularizing lectures, the writing and distribution of blog posts, engagement in summer courses for university students, and the organization of workshops at secondary schools.
The project has considerably broadened the scope of reception studies of ancient novels by identifying and discussing several hitherto unknown or disregarded references to ancient novels in later texts. It has thus shown that the reception of the ancient novel in late Antiquity and the Middle Ages up to the 12th century is significantly more extensive than previously believed. Our work has identified specific genres, authors, eras and regions of particular interest and highlighted and documented the presence and significance of ancient novels in contexts where they have traditionally been either insufficiently explored or completely overlooked altogether. We have thus demonstrated the circulation and sustained popularity of ancient novels throughout the millennium following their composition, well before their 12th-century revival.
The project has unearthed new material and filled lacunae in scholarship through a number of in-depth studies ranging from Byzantine literary criticism and florilegia to Old French romance, Syriac rhetorical theory, hagiography in western and eastern traditions, and epistolography. It combined manuscript research, intertextuality, close reading, both ancient and modern literary criticism and rhetorical studies both to provide new interpretations of late antique and medieval narrative texts that are impacted by ancient novels, and to identify modes of circulation and routes of transmission of ancient Greek novels into the Middle Ages. This had led to new insights into where and how ancient novels were read and how concepts of fiction shaped narrative in Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages.
In addition, the project placed the study of the reception of the ancient novel on a methodologically improved footing and provided new methodological paradigms for exploring the reception of novelistic fiction in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages.
Finally, the project has produced several critical text editions of previously unpublished narrative texts.
The project members have disseminated their findings to academic audiences worldwide in a series of conference papers and academic publications (monographs, edited volumes, journal articles, book chapters and an online database). The dissemination to non-academic audiences has taken several forms: contributions to (written) media, popularizing lectures, the writing and distribution of blog posts, engagement in summer courses for university students, and the organization of workshops at secondary schools.
Our database for the first time draws a systematic picture of receptions of ancient novels that moves beyond the ‘usual suspects’ that have been known to scholars for a long time and which constitute a finite number (the so-called ‘testimonia’, i.e. explicit references to titles of novels, names of novelists, characters or events in the novels), and into the identification of intertextual links in previously neglected works from a range of different narrative genres.
Moreover, the interpretative in-depth studies enhance our understanding of both the corpus texts and the early history of the novel; place the study of the corpus texts on an improved methodological footing; and contribute to the theoretical study of the much-vexed question of how to conceptualize fiction. They also offer new approaches to both the ancient novels and ancient fiction more generally and shed new light on the novels’ transmission through the different cultural contexts of the imperial period, late antiquity, and the early Middle Ages.
Finally, our work also includes editions and translations of specific texts, thus providing other scholars with access to hitherto unpublished and therefore largely unavailable texts.
Moreover, the interpretative in-depth studies enhance our understanding of both the corpus texts and the early history of the novel; place the study of the corpus texts on an improved methodological footing; and contribute to the theoretical study of the much-vexed question of how to conceptualize fiction. They also offer new approaches to both the ancient novels and ancient fiction more generally and shed new light on the novels’ transmission through the different cultural contexts of the imperial period, late antiquity, and the early Middle Ages.
Finally, our work also includes editions and translations of specific texts, thus providing other scholars with access to hitherto unpublished and therefore largely unavailable texts.