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Experimental Histories
Interpolation and the Medieval British Past
Hannah Weaver (Author)
9781501776205
Hardback, published 15 August 2024
246 pages, 21 color halftones - 21 Halftones, color
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.5 cm, 0.907 kg
In Experimental Histories, Hannah Weaver examines the medieval practice of interpolation—inserting material from one text into another—which is often categorized as being a problematic, inauthentic phenomenon akin to forgery and pseudepigraphy. Instead, Weaver promotes interpolation as the signature form of medieval British historiography and a vehicle of historical theory, arguing that some of the most novel concepts of time in medieval historiography can be found in these altered narratives of the past. For Weaver, historiographical interpolation constitutes the traces of active experimentation with how best to write history, particularly the history of Britain. Historians in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Britain recognized the difficulty of enfolding complex events into a linear chronology and embraced innovative textual methods of creating history. Focusing on the Brut tradition but also analyzing the long history of interpolated historiography, including the Bayeux Embroidery, Experimental Histories offers a new interpretation of generic remixing in medieval writing about the past. Drawing on both manuscript studies and the new formalism, it shows that the practice of inserting materials from romance and hagiography allowed creative revisers to explore how lived events relate to passing time. By embracing interpolation, Weaver provides lively insights into the ways that time becomes history and human actors experience time.
Introduction: Interpolation and the Patchwork of History
1. The Rise of Historical Interpolation from Antiquity to Geoffrey of Monmouth
2. Prophecy and the Prudent Reader
4. Finding Fulfillment in the Roman de Brut
5. Images and Collapse in the Bayeux Embroidery and the Egerton Brut
The Afterlives of Interpolation and Timefulness