Though rarely treated in Anglophone scholarship,
The Seven Sages of Romewas a medieval multilingual bestseller, one of the most popular narratives in premodern literature. Versions of
The Seven Sagesframe story and inset tales appear in almost every European language in the medieval period, variously titled
The Seven Wise Masters,Historia Septem Sapientum, Roman des Sept Sages, The Book of Sindbād, Dolopathos,and
Syntipas the Philosopher,among others. Part of the broad tradition of wisdom literature, or “mirror for princes”, the inset stories in
The Seven Sagesare designed to function as moral parables, while the premise of the frame, a storytelling contest used to adjudicate an accusation of rape, works as metatextual “proof” of the power of such narratives. In the frame…
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Citation: Bonsall, Jane. "The Middle English Seven Sages of Rome". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 12 April 2024 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=41307, accessed 09 October 2024.]