‘Turning many to righteousness’ : Religious didacticism in the ›Speculum humanae salvationis‹ and the similitude of the oak tree

  • In this contribution I shall be interested, among other things, in finding a place for the European phenomenon of the ›Speculum humanae salvationis‹ within German literary history, which will inescapably involve revisiting the unfashionable discussion of date and origins. I also intend to ask about the place of this text in the ‘didactic’ literature of the Middle Ages. Is a religious text structured according to sacred history didactic? Much didactic poetry is in the vernacular: What does it mean that the ›Speculum‹ was composed in Latin? And what place should be accorded to its vernacular reception? The ›Speculum‹ is inscribed within a set of oppositions that would appear to be recurrent in the didactic literature of the later Middle Ages: Latin and vernacular, verse and prose, words and pictures, religious and profane, moral teaching and devotion, clerical and lay. In view of its exceptionally broad transmission in the German lands, both in Latin and in vernacular reworkings, is it possible to describe this text so that it takes a place within a larger picture? In some respects it may stand at a threshold in the history of European didacticism.

Download full text files

Export metadata

Additional Services

Share in Twitter Search Google Scholar
Metadaten
Author:Nigel F. Palmer
URN:urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-234357
ISBN:978-3-11-021898-5
Parent Title (German):Dichtung und Didaxe : Lehrhaftes Sprechen in der deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters, Berlin ; New York, NY : de Gruyter, 2009. ISBN: 978-3-11-021898-5, S. 345-368
Publisher:Walter de Gruyter
Place of publication:Berlin
Editor:Henrike Lähnemann, Sandra Linden
Document Type:Part of a Book
Language:English
Date of Publication (online):2011/12/02
Year of first Publication:2009
Publishing Institution:Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg
Release Date:2011/12/02
GND Keyword:Lehrdichtung; Rhetorik
Page Number:22
First Page:345
Last Page:366
HeBIS-PPN:381154556
Institutes:Extern
Dewey Decimal Classification:8 Literatur / 83 Deutsche und verwandte Literaturen / 830 Literaturen germanischer Sprachen; Deutsche Literatur
Sammlungen:Germanistik / GiNDok
BDSL-Klassifikation:09.00.00 Spätmittelalter und Übergangszeit (14. und 15. Jahrhundert) / BDSL-Klassifikation: 09.00.00 Spätmittelalter und Übergangszeit (14. und 15. Jahrhundert) > 09.08.00 Gattungen und Formen / BDSL-Klassifikation: 09.00.00 Spätmittelalter und Übergangszeit (14. und 15. Jahrhundert) > 09.08.00 Gattungen und Formen > 09.08.08 Geistliche Literatur
Licence (German):License LogoDeutsches Urheberrecht