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Jacques Le Goff writes that the exemplum is "a brief narrative presented as truthful (that is, historical) and used in discourse (usually a sermon) to convince listeners by offering them a salutary lesson" (The Medieval Imagination. Chicago 1988, 78). Le Goff's definition and article highlight the importance of the exemplum to medieval preachers and their audiences, and also the protean nature of the genre; indeed, the genre, though it is similar to other forms of folk narrative (and other forms of folk narrative can in fact be used as exempla), cannot be defined through its structural or generic characteristics. Instead, definitions, such as Le Goff's, of the exemplum must focus on the function as the defining characteristic of the genre. Time, too, is an important characteristic; though stories from the far past were often used as exempla, Le Goff notes that the emphasis in medieval collections of the genre is "on the recent past, on the time of the narrator, who insists on the contemporary character of his stories by situating them in 'nostris temporibus' (in our time)." (Le Goff, 79) The exemplum thus displays many of the characteristics of legends (and both sacred and secular

Publisher

Walter de Gruyter GmbH

Published

2015