VISUALIZING NARRATIVE STRUCTURE IN THE MEDIEVAL UNIVERSITY:DIVISIO TEXTUSREVISITED

Abstract

The early thirteenth century saw the rise of a new exegetical technique:divisio textus, or text division. Commentators engaged in subtle structural analyses, parsing texts into increasingly smaller units, and at times represented these structures as complex tree diagrams. For a case study of this technique, this essay presents a previously unnoticed series of such marginal diagrams in MS Assisi, Bib. Com. 51 that depict the structure of the first three chapters of theBook of Job. Following the manner in which the author analyzes the narrative functions of character description, dialogues, and other aspects, the essay reconstructs the narratological principles embedded in these diagrams, and compares them with other divisions of Job by thirteenth century theologians. It sets the diagramming ofdivisiones textusin its the broader context of medieval horizontal tree diagrams and discusses the peculiar implications of the spatialization of biblical narrative. Appendices include full transcriptions, translations and auxiliary materials for comparison.

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