Circulation périphérique et « fluidité » des textes: l’exemple du Barlaam kai Ioasaph au XIe siècle
Peripheral Circulation and the “Fluidity” of Texts: The Example of Barlaam kai Ioasaph in the 11th Century

Summary/Abstract: The author introduces a new explanatory paradigm to account for the relationship among the textual variants of the eleventh Byzantine “novel” Barlaam and Ioasaph (actually a saga attested in many languages, among which Sanskrit, Sogdian, Georgian, Arabic, Persian, Chinese, and Greek). This paradigm can be extended to other texts, similar to the Barlaam and Ioasaph, i.e., whose authors are anonymous and whose content is open and not firmly structured. The analysis of textual transmission of texts like these cannot follow the same rules as standard Lachmannian philology. Basso proposes to call the new paradigm the “Karussell-Modell” in reference and in opposition to the antiquate Baum-Modell (“the tree-model”), since it takes into due consideration the spiral-like diffusion of stories, dramatically different from the model of a genealogical transmission of manuscripts.

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