Bestsellers and Masterpieces

Bestsellers and masterpieces investigates the strange fact that many of the texts we now study and teach as the most canonical representations of European and Middle Eastern medieval writing were, in fact, not popular - or even read at all - in their day. On the other hand, those texts that were popular, as evidenced by the extant manuscript record, are taught and studied with far less frequency. The most dramatic demonstration of this disparity can be found in the surprising number of medieval texts now regarded as 'masterpieces' that have survived in just one single copy, in an unicum manuscript. On the European side this list includes Beowulf, El Poema de mio Cid and others; similarly canonical Arabo-Mediterranean examples include Ibn Hazm's Tawq al-Hamama (The Neck-Ring of the Dove) and Usama ibn Munqidh's Kitab al-I'tibar (Memoirs of Usama ibn Munqidh). While respecting the complicated history of each, contributors explore the processes that have contributed to the rise or eclipse of these canonical or neglected texts. Bestsellers and masterpieces provides cross-cultural insight into both the literary tastes of the medieval period and the cultural and political forces behind the creation of the 'modern canon' of medieval literature.