The Invention of the Eyewitness: Witnessing and Testimony in Early Modern France (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780807892831)

In an examination of eyewitness travel writing in thirteenth- through sixteenth-century France, Andrea Frisch studies the figure of the witness at a historical juncture and in a cultural context in which that figure is generally thought to have begun to assume a recognizably modern form and function. Whereas most accounts of early modern travel literature tend to read modern presuppositions about witnessing and testimony back into the material, Frisch approaches the early modern witness in terms of the cultural legacy of the Middle Ages. Through primary readings in law and theology, Frisch documents the tension between the ethical witness (the characteristic witness of premodernity) and the epistemic witness (the modern witness) and explores the impact of that tension on the figure of the witness in pre- and early modern French-language travel literature.

Author: Andrea Frisch
ISBN-10: 0807892831
ISBN-13: 9780807892831
Publisher: Unc Department of Romance Studies
Language: English
Published: 01/01/2004
Pages: 198
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.81lbs
Size: 9.18h x 6.00w x 0.59d