Poétique latine et poétique vieil-anglaise: poèmes mêlant les deux langues

• Autores: André Crépin
• Localización: Medievales: Langue, textes, histoire, ISSN 0751-2708, Nº 25, 1993 (Ejemplar dedicado a: La voix et l'écriture), págs. 33-44
• Idioma: francés
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• Resumen

  • Latin and English Poetics - Notes on Macaronic Texts - Old English literature is one of the oldest vernacular literatures in Europe. Bede (d. 735), who wrote chiefly in Latin, felt no contempt for the English language ; King Alfred (d. 899) applied a systematic policy of translation into English ; Abbot Aelfric (ca. 1000) considered Latin and English as being on nearly equal terms. The immense debts of Anglo-Saxon writers to Latin is well known. However, macaronic passages in Old English poetry have not been studied recently nor closely. The Latin segments borrowed from classical texts, rythmical hymns and prayers, or glossaries, and inserted into Old English poems throw light on the technique of composition of the poets. They underline the formulaic nature of the half-lines and the metric importance of the syllabic volume. They evidence a noteworthy awareness of the linguistic features of Latin. On the other hand, the small number of such segments shows that Latin and English are kept separate : each type of discourse has its own language.