Disjecta membra
Disiecta membra or membra disiecta ( Latin ) means “scattered limbs” and is a fixed term for the designation of the parts of a whole that have been torn from their original organic order. It is used in technical terms, especially in manuscript studies and in the book industry, to denote the scattered transmission of individual components of a codex or book , similarly in art history for components of a work of art or building that are no longer in their original context.
The expression goes back to a passage in Horace ( Satires 1, 4, 62), at which the question arises as to whether the concept of the poetic is fulfilled simply by the use of a poetic meter in contrast to prose , or also a specific one Quality of words and thoughts required. To clarify the problem, Horace quotes a passage from the poet Ennius and states that when the words are rearranged and the rhythm and meter are destroyed, the "disiecti membra poetae", "the torn poet's limbs" (ie the words of his poetry), after as before can be recognized as poetic.
A very literal conception of the "disiecti membra poetae" is encountered in Goethe's Xenion on the Homer philologist Friedrich August Wolf , whose questioning of Homer's sole authorship in the Homeric epics of the poets comments as follows:
- “Seven cities quarreled over giving birth to him;
Now that the wolf tore it up, each take its piece. "