Abstract

This volume offers a comprehensive examination of the theoretical and practical possibilities of an interdisciplinary approach to nominalism in medieval literature. The essays aim to avoid theoretical reductivism and to provide a critical perspective. In each essay, a scholar in the field investigates one of the existing theoretical approaches (for example, nominalism as a direct source for late medieval writers in the philological sense; nominalism as a philosophical superstratum; nominalism as part of a typical late medieval mentality; nominalism as an intertext; medieval nominalist sign theory in comparison with 20th century sign theory), and then applies the chosen approach to a literary case study. This study also contains an inclusive bibliography on nominalism and late medieval literature.