Scholars of medieval literary and
cultural history have grown more aware of the crucial role of
memory in the production, reception and functioning of texts and
manuscripts. We owe this to the pioneering studies of Frances Yates
and, more recently, Mary Carruthers and Susan Hagen.
Historical linguists for their
part try to describe the linguistic means by which listeners and
readers are enabled to store the information flow in their
memories.
The relationship between medieval
texts and memory is at the centre of this book. Seven historians of
literature, three linguists and one art historian have contributed
eleven essays, subsumed under three sections. The first section,
'Memory Texts', discusses genres that belong to medieval mnemonics.
In the second and most extensive section, 'Memory Aspects in
Texts', the focus is on literature and, more particularly, on how
attention for mnemonics can enhance our insight into the form,
composition and functioning of literary texts and manuscripts.
Mental and visual images play a central role here. 'Text Memory',
the final section, analyses medieval (French) literary discourse as
a fabric of reference chains, in which different grammatical
markers generate and organise mental representations in the
memory.