Karla Pollmann

Augustine beyond the Book

This interdisciplinary collection of essays investigates the processes by which Augustine of Hippos writings were re-invented in other media, including the visual arts, drama and music. Thereby it highlights the crucial role of Augustines readers in constructing his universal stature.

Alium sub meo nomine: Augustine between His Own Self-Fashioning and His Later Reception

ZUSAMMENFASSUNG Wie andere Autoren vor und nach ihm war Augustinus von Hippo sich sehr bewusst, wie unterschiedlich seine Person und sein Werk von anderen rezipiert werden könnten. Daher versuchte er, sowohl die Rezeption seines Lebens, durch das Verfassen seiner Confessiones, als auch die Rezeption seiner Werke, durch das Abfassen der Retractationes, zu kontrollieren. Dieser Aufsatz analysiert die verschiedenen Methoden, mit denen Augustinus besonders Letzteres zu erreichen versuchte. In einem zweiten Teil demonstriert dieser Aufsatz dann an zwei Einzelfällen (Beda Venerabilis und Johannes Scotus Eriugena), inwieweit dieses Ansinnen Augustins tatsächlich erfolgreich war.

Five Contributions to Latin Philology AD

With these verses that are as elegant as they are witty, the 20th century Latin poet Josef Eberle from Rottenburg (South Germany)1 characterizes an interesting phenomenon of Latin language and literature, which is mutatis mutandis also true for its Greek equivalent: that it is on the one hand declared to be dead and therefore irrelevant for the present, and that on the other, it continues to attract attention, antagonism or admiration, and even occasionally exerts influence on present day affairs. This paradoxical phenomenon occurs through the ages in tidal movements, and has been described with various metaphors, the most prominent of it being the term ‘renaissance’, which of course implicitly presupposes a previously occurring death.2 On an institutional level the continuing existence of Latin literature is owed to its presence as a subject at distinguished universities around the world. To mark the occasion of the recent retirement of two senior and internationally renowned Latinists, Adrian S. Gratwick and Harry M. Hine, at the School of Classics, St Andrews, Scotland, a symposium was organized in their honour by Karla Pollmann and Roger Rees. Four of the following papers were presented at this event, and Boris Dunsch kindly offered an extra contribution. Apart from drawing attention to the School’s strength (past and present) in this area, the focus lay on various methods of the discipline of philology. As these methods are crucial in a St Andrews project on the reception of Augustine of Hippo through

The poetics of biblical tragedy in Abelard's Planctus

One of the difficulties in mapping out medieval exegesis is that medieval theology and medieval exegesis are often seen as overlapping, if not synonymous terms. The chapter focuses on one of the more creative and structural features of medieval exegesis, namely the desire to actualize the human reality underlying the biblical text. It then turns to the case of Peter Abelard, who is the subject of the exegetical reflections. On the whole the problem with twelfth century thought, which his works typically exemplify, is that it shows us an era in which the rise of scholasticism appears to have severely diminished the role of the Bible. As a concrete example of contrary exegetical positions based on the same biblical text and presented with equal dramatic temerity, one can point out how both Abelard and Bernard of Clairvaux have used the image of David battling Goliath. Keywords: Bernard of Clairvaux; Bible; David-Goliath analogy; medieval exegesis; medieval theology; Peter Abelard; Planctus ; Poetics of Biblical Tragedy