The Monastic Rules of Visigothic Iberia - eTheses Repository ...

It would be churlish to abandon the concept of literature altogether: „literature‟ clearly
does exist as a concept, albeit a rather fuzzy one with no set boundaries. In addition, it is a
term that is engraved in modern mentalities. Nevertheless, to talk of literature is to talk of a
word that defies definition, and this cannot be a tenable position from which to study.
Instead, the challenge must be met not with new terminology but with new approaches. Just
a couple of generations ago, black-and-white concepts of periodization provided seemingly
workable and comfortable models for historians, yet they clearly ignored the intricacies of
social change and personal identities. Such clear-cut approaches are today no longer
possible, and it is largely recognised that periodizations provide a useful framework of study,
but are subject to inconsistencies and may in reality reflect very little, if anything, of
contemporary culture. It is from this aspect that literature must be viewed, a necessary term
but a concept that is prone to varying interpretations, each one not necessarily more correct
than another, and whose modern sensibilities may reflect little of those of the intended
audience.
In this thesis, the following approach has been adopted. The study of literature is
understood to imply the study of the relationship between a text, its writer and its audience;
texts are understood to imply simply written documents of any kind, from graffito scratching
to drawn-out prose. Perhaps it could be argued that this definition is too broad, but it is
nevertheless better to be inclusive than exclusive; after all, this study hopes some way to right
the wrongs that an approach of exclusivity has so far encouraged. This definition also allows
for a far better position from which to study holistically literary development because it does
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