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Ever since its introduction in the 1970s, Ruth Finnegan’s notion of the oral-written, or the oral-literate, continuum has served as one of the most effective means of dispelling the dichotomous understanding of the two principal media of communication in the Middle Ages. However, while often casually invoked, the concept has never been made a focus of study in its own right. The present volume is an attempt to place the oral-written continuum at the heart of discussion as an object of a head-on theoretical investigation, as a backdrop to distinct processes of acquisition of literacy in different European regions, and, indeed, as a tool for navigating the rugged landscape of verbal forms, exploring the complexity of oral-literary interrelationships that they manifest. The articles probe the concept with a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches, span diverse texts and genres, and involve a range of European cultural contexts, with special emphasis on Scandinavia and Northern Europe, but also reaching out to various other corners of the continent: from France, the Netherlands and England in the West, over Germany, Bohemia and Poland in the central region, to Serbia and Bosnia in the Southeast.

Scandinavian literature --- Literary rhetorics --- anno 500-1499 --- Literacy --- Written communication --- Oral tradition --- Rhetoric, Medieval --- Old Norse literature --- History --- History and criticism --- History and criticism. --- Alphabétisation --- Communication écrite --- Tradition orale --- Rhétorique médiévale --- Littérature vieux norroise --- Histoire --- Histoire et critique --- Europe --- To 1500 --- Rhetoric [Medieval ] --- Literacy - Europe - History - To 1500 --- Written communication - History - Europe - Written communication - History - To 1500 --- Oral tradition - Europe - History - To 1500 --- Rhetoric, Medieval - Europe --- Old Norse literature - History and criticism --- Tradition, Oral --- Oral communication --- Folklore --- Oral history --- Illiteracy --- Education --- General education

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Despite various poststructuralist rejections of the idea of a singular author-genius, the question of a textual archetype that can be assigned to a named author is still a common scholarly phantasm. The Romantic idea that an author created a text or even a work autonomously is transferred even to pre-modern literature today. This ignores the fact that the transmission of medieval and early modern literature creates variances that could not be justified by means of singular authorships. The present volume offers new theoretical approaches from English, German, and Scandinavian studies to provide a historically more adequate approach to the question of authorship in premodern literary cultures. Authorship is no longer equated with an extra-textual entity, but is instead considered a narratological, inner- and intertextual function that can be recognized in the retrospectively established beginnings of literature as well as in the medial transformation of texts during the early days of printing. The volume is aimed at interested scholars of all philologies, especially those dealing with the Middle Ages or Early Modern Period.

LITERARY CRITICISM / European / General. --- Authorship as a Theoretical Concept. --- Premodern Authorship. --- Premodern Literature.