IL ROMANZO MEDIEVALE

The centrality of the novel in the history of narrative forms cannot be doubted, but Meletinsky in this volume also shows how the real cradle of the novel is the Middle Ages and not, as is often believed, the age of the bourgeoisie and revolutions. Moreover, the great comparative openness provided by historical poetics allows us to trace the literary and cultural strengths of the novel from Europe to the Near, Middle and Extreme Orient. The reader is therefore given a powerful synthesis of the common features of this universal narrative form, intertwined with rigorous analyses of the most important texts of the international medieval novel.

About the Authors
E. M. Meletinsky (1918-2005) is known throughout the Western world for his studies in comparative literature, in particular in mythology and international narrative folklore; in Italian La struttura della fiaba (1977), Il mito (1993), Introduzione alla poetica storica dell’epos e del romanzo (1993) and, for publication by EUM, Poetica storica della novella (2014) and Archetipi letterari (2016).

Massimo Bonafin is a Professor of Romance Philology and Origins of European Literatures at the University of Macerata.

Laura Sestri, a PhD in Linguistic History of Eurasia, is a translator from Russian and English. Hers are translations of the historical poetics of the novel and of literary archetypes.