The Invention of the Eyewitness: Witnessing and Testimony in Early Modern France
In an examination of eyewitness travel writing in thirteenth- through sixteenth-century France, Andrea Frisch studies the figure of the witness at a historical juncture and in a cultural context in which that figure is generally thought to have begun to assume a recognizably modern form and function.
Whereas most accounts of early modern travel literature tend to read modern presuppositions about witnessing and testimony back into the material, Frisch approaches the early modern witness in terms of the cultural legacy of the Middle Ages. Through primary readings in law and theology, Frisch documents the tension between the ethical witness (the characteristic witness of premodernity) and the epistemic witness (the modern witness) and explores the impact of that tension on the figure of the witness in pre- and early modern French-language travel literature.
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Since Jesus ' s reference to his testimony of earthly things is in the past tense ( “
dixi ” ) and his reference to his testimony of spiritual things is in the future perfect (
“ dixero " ) , one could argue that his present - tense “ vidimus ” in fact refers to ...
... which clearly refers to Léry as the subject of vision , occurs only eight times ,
and one of these is in fact a reference to Europe ; by contrast , “ je dis ” and other
references to speaking , telling , or writing conjugated in the first person singular
Rather than attempt to represent his experience mimetically , Léry makes it the
ineffable center of a network of references within his text . In other words , Léry ' s
discourse itself displaces his body as the mediating link between the signifiers ...
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THE WITNESS AND THE JUDGE
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