2023: Special Issue 15: Bible epics. Medieval perspectives on a European narrative tradition
Biblical epic is a European narrative tradition that was of central importance in late antiquity and the Middle Ages. The contributions in this special issue from Byzantine Studies, Classical Philology, Early German Literary Studies, Romance Studies, Dutch Studies and Yiddish Literary Studies open up interdisciplinary perspectives on this hitherto under-researched subject. Latin and vernacular biblical epics are not only based on the Bible and apocryphal and legendary pretexts, but also integrate narrative forms and literary registers from ancient epic, medieval heroic epic, the courtly novel, chronicles, didactic poetry, lyric poetry and spiritual drama. This constitutive hybridity makes the genre, according to the central thesis, a particularly productive subject for (narratological) investigations into pre-modern narrative and reception methods.
