Condensing texts – condensed texts

edited by Marietta Horster and Christiane Reitz

Book cover: Condensing texts – condensed texts

Extent: 764 pages

Publisher: Franz Steiner Verlag

Subjects: Classical Studies, Literary Studies

Series: Palingenesia

Series volume number: 98

Language: English

Hardback (Published)

(January 2011)

ISBN: 9783515093958

6.65 x 9.45 inches

Price: $171.00

In stock

Abbreviating, excerpting and epitomising is a complex intellectual process. Throughout antiquity, both producers and users of texts relied on abridgements and compilations to manage the store of knowledge. Different formats – like epitome, excerpt, florilegium, anthology, gnomologion – flourished from the classical period onward. This collection looks at the changing socioliterary conditions that created a need for these accessible formats, and investigates the literary and learning mechanisms that were deployed to create condensed texts, across generic and thematic boundaries. In 26 studies, these processes are described and analysed in different fields of literature and specialist knowledge.

  • Edited by Marietta Horster
  • Edited by Christiane Reitz