Pre-Modern Seminar No 8: Jürgen Beyer

On Tuesday May 17th Jürgen Beyer will give a talk called:

"Ein Vorläufer von Walter Andersons sog. Gesetz der Selbstberichtigung.
Zur Bedeutung von frühneuzeitlichen Bibelvorreden für die historische Erzählforschung."

The paper will be given in German, but longer quotations (among them Anderson's so-called "law") will be distributed as a handout.

The seminar will take place in the library of Skandinavistika (Ülikooli 17) at 18.15.
 

Jürgen has sent us a short presentation of the lecture:

"In a 1923 monograph, Walter Anderson, the first professor of Estonian and comparative folk poetry at Tartu University, formulated what he – somewhat presumptuously – called the "law of self-correction". Anderson thought this could explain why folk narratives over the centuries often underwent few changes. The paper will start by discussing whether the German preface to the Tallinn-Estonian translation of the New Testament (1715) could have served as Anderson's inspiration when formulating his "law".

While investigating whether other Bible prefaces of the period, too, contained contributions to narrative theory, it became apparent that they certainly were filled with traditional tales (i. e. tales available in variants). Two such - one about divinely ordained dyslexia and one about Bible paper falling into the hand of respectful pirates - will be presented."

Welcome!