Towards a literary functional approach in the study of encyclopedic late Latin texts: problems and proposals)

Abstract

The present paper aims to study the late Latin encyclopedic texts from the perspective of Discourse Analysis based on Systemic- Functional Linguistics. Our principal objective is showing that, departing from a functional approach on literary genre, combining text and context, it is possible to analyze in a deep way works that, from formal perspectives, pose difficulties in their characterization. In order to accompany the statement of the problem, we will recur to two works belonging to our corpus: Macrobius’ Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis de Macrobio (5th century A.D.) and Martianus Capella’s De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii de Marciano Capela (5th century A.D.).