Description

This collection of essays focuses on a crucial aspect of late antique thought and literature that has hitherto largely been neglected: its self-reflexivity, i.e. its unprecedented ability to make language and literature into its main and often its only subject matter. Adopting a variety of perspectives and methodologies, the essays included in this volume approach the notion of self-reflexivity in two main ways. On the one hand (literature as a reflection of literature), it implies a self-conscious reflection of preceding literary models, which are creatively mirrored in new but intrinsically derivative works of art, taking the form of remakes, parodies, homages, commentaries, retellings, centos, paraphrases, allegorizations, and more or less free re-enactments. On the other hand (literature as reflection on literature), the term also implies a self-questioning reflection on the literary work and the very concepts of language and literature, thus referring to its own artificiality or contrivance while opening up all sorts of theoretical discussions of the mechanisms, the conventions, and even the relevance of linguistic and literary representation.