Mediaevalism as an Example of Reception Studies
Mediaevalism as an Example of Reception Studies

Summary/Abstract: The construction of statements about the past is to a large extent a reconstruction of how the past is imagined. Past culture is not given to contemporaries except through a relic or trace, while discourse or narrative produced is an imagistic activity. Using the example of contemporary trends in mediaevalist research, this article shows three clear tendencies in the way the past is treated: as a phantasm, a translated text and a discursive element. All these mechanisms are inscribed in cultural comparativism, which can be understood as a model of ‘reading’ past culture (through) and (into) contemporary culture. Mediaevalism is under-stood here as a representation of a supra-historical and transcultural comparative study. Such an approach makes it possible to prove that the study of reception is in fact an activity in the spirit of cultural comparativism.

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