The name of Alcuin of York (730?-804) is forever linked with that of Charlemagne. From this Anglo-Saxon cleric, who was employed alongside the Frankish king in bringing about, both in theory and in practice, the Carolingian Renaissance, we have roughly three hundred Letters, which this book studies using the most recent findings of literary research. After a first part devoted to an intellectual history of the life and works of Charlemagne’s teacher and counsellor, a series of studies on language and composition aims to show the aesthetic and pragmatic function of letters—the Tacitus Nuntius (“silent messenger”)—for their author. “Definition(s) of the letter”, “Tutelary figures of Alcuin’s correspondence”; “Letters to kings and bishops, and the speculum genre”: these are the guiding lines of this volume, which hopes to highlight questions which concern both history and literature, mentalities and rhetoric, textual poetics and the use of documents, for readers seeking a better understanding of the literature of the Western high middle ages.
EAMA 50: Paris, Institut d’études augustiniennes, 2013
ISBN: 978-2-85121-265-8
ISSN: 1159-4888
330 p., 165 x 250 mm
45 € TTC
