Disjecta membra

Disiecta membra or disiecta membra (Latin ) means " scattered limbs" and is a fixed term for the name of the torn out of their original organic order parts of a whole. He is technical language used especially in manuscript studies and the book trade, to designate the scattered tradition of individual components of a codex or book, similar in art history for parts of a work of art or building that no longer are in their original context.

The term goes back to a point in Horace ( Satires 1,4,62 ), where it comes to the question whether the concept of poetry will already met solely through the use of a poetic versification as opposed to prose, or even a particular quality of words and thoughts require. To illustrate the problem, Horace quotes a passage from the poet Ennius and notes that when changing the words and thus destruction of rhythm and meter of the " disiecti membra poetae ", " the poet's torn limbs" (that is, the words of his poetry ), could no longer be seen as poetic.

A very literal view of " disiecti membra poetae " encountered in the Xenion Goethe on the Homer philologist Friedrich August Wolf, whose comments questioning the authorship of Homer to the Homeric epics, the poet follows:

• Latin phrase