Opus geminum

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Opus geminum (German: "Zwillingswerk") describes a form of literature that was used in a variety of ways, especially in the Latin-speaking Middle Ages. An Opus geminum is a work in which one and the same subject is dealt with in two different forms, namely in verse form ( bound speech ) and prose form . Emerging from the exercises in grammar lessons and the rhetoric school , it became an independent literary form in late antiquity . It represents one of the answers to the Christian style conflict that arose from the rejection of ancient education and above all rhetoric by early Christianity, when the educated upper classes converted to Christianity in a broad stream from the 4th century and were not readily ready were to renounce their educational traditions. It is therefore a contrast-imitative form that fills the elitist linguistic form of pagan poetry with Christian content and thus takes account of the needs of an exclusive educational class, but at the same time makes it generally accessible through the prose paraphrase and thus at least pro forma the egalitarian Christian claim Mediation of salvation to all. A new justification can be found in the Anglo-Saxon Aldhelm von Malmesbury , who argues that man should praise God as part of creation with all available means (diversa voce). In the case of Hrabanus Maurus , the form also serves to explain the verses, which are extremely difficult due to the compulsory form of the figure poems. In Book I of his Vita Abbot Eigils von Fulda, Brun Candidus focuses on the historical sequence ( sensus historicus ) and the moral interpretation ( sensus moralis ), in Book II the ecclesiological-eschatological interpretation ( sensus mysticus ) in the sense of the doctrine of the multiple sense of writing in the foreground . The idea of ​​a multiple narration consequently suggested the illustration of Opera gemina in the 9th century , as in Sedulius (afterwards) and in Hrabanus Maurus and Brun Candidus (by the author himself). The linking of text and image and the work with the multiple sense of writing provided arguments against the iconoclasts (opponents of images ) in the image dispute .

Analogous to the opus geminum, there is rarely a poema geminum in which the same material is presented in a way that is recognizable in its structure in formally different poems, e.g. B. in the first half of the 13th century by Gregory of Montesacro .

The term Opus geminum is derived from works by Coelius Sedulius (5th century), who created the first twin work by using a Bible paraphrase in verse, the Paschale carmen, a prose version, the Paschal opus, allegedly made after critical reactions. provided for explanation. However, this topical representation of the development process deserves little trust. It is more likely that Sedulius, as usual, first wrote the prose as a working basis, then wrote the verses and justified the previously planned, but at that time still unusual, addition of the prose with the intervention of his critics and thus sought to give the undertaking of a poetic Bible paraphrase a new kind of legitimation.

Further examples of opera gemina in the early Middle Ages:

See also: prosimetrum

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Udo Kindermann , The Poema geminum of the saints of the Holy Mountain. Two early poetic patronage reliquary catalogs', in: Festschrift for Josef Szövérffy, Cologne 1986, pp. 77–90.
  2. ↑ Some z. Some examples of the High and Late Middle Ages that have not been preserved beyond this list can be found in Ferrari (2008), p. 256.

literature

  • Ernst Walter: Opus geminum. Investigations into a type of form in the Middle Latin literature. Diss. Phil. Erlangen 1973.
  • Gereon Becht-Jördens: The Vita Aegil abbatis Fuldensis of Brun Candidus. An opus geminum from the age of the Anian reform in a biblical-figural background style. Knecht, Frankfurt am Main 1992, ISBN 3-7820-0649-6 ( Fuldaer Hochschulschriften 17).
  • Gereon Becht-Jördens: Litterae illuminatae. On the history of a literary type of form. In: Gangolf Schrimpf (Hrsg.): Fulda Abbey in the world of the Carolingians and Ottonians. Knecht, Frankfurt am Main 1996, ISBN 3-7820-0707-7 , pp. 325-364 ( Fuldaer Studien 7).
  • Michele Camillo Ferrari: Il "Liber sanctae crucis" di Rabano Mauro. Testo - immagine - contesto. Peter Lang, Bern et al. 1999, ISBN 3-906762-17-3 ( Latin literature and language of the Middle Ages 30), (At the same time: Zurich, Univ., Habil.-Schr., 1998).
  • Michele Camillo Ferrari: Opus geminum . In: Peter Stotz (Ed.): Poetry as material mediation. Forms, goals, effects. Contributions to the practice of versifying Latin texts in the Middle Ages. Chronos, Zurich 2008, ISBN 978-3-03-400898-3 , pp. 247-264 ( media change - media change - media knowledge 5).