An excursus (from

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

''excurrere'', 'to run out of') is a short episode or anecdote in a work of literature. Often excursuses have nothing to do with the matter being discussed by the work, and are used to lighten the atmosphere in a tragic story, a similar function to that of

satyr play The satyr play is a form of Attic theatre performance related to both comedy and tragedy. It preserves theatrical elements of dialogue, actors speaking verse, a chorus that dances and sings, masks and costumes. Its relationship to tragedy is stro ...

s in Greek theatre. Sometimes they are used to provide

backstory A backstory, background story, back-story, or background is a set of events invented for a plot, presented as preceding and leading up to that plot. It is a literary device of a narrative history all chronologically earlier than the narrative of p ...

to the matter being discussed at hand, as in

Pseudo-Apollodorus The ''Bibliotheca'' (Ancient Greek: grc, Βιβλιοθήκη, lit=Library, translit=Bibliothēkē, label=none), also known as the ''Bibliotheca'' of Pseudo-Apollodorus, is a compendium of Greek myths and heroic legends, arranged in three book ...

' ''Bibliotheke''. In the Middle Ages, the excursus is a favourite rhetorical device to allow the narrator to comment or to suspend the action for reflection. Furthermore, an excursus is often applied to a piece of academic writing to provide digressive information, which does not contribute directly to the line of argument but can still be linked with the overall topic of the text.

Etymologies as excursuses

Sometimes detailed or fanciful

etymologies Etymology ()The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p. 633 "Etymology /ˌɛtɪˈmɒlədʒi/ the study of the class in words and the way their meanings have changed throughout time". is the study of the history of the form of words and ...

are used as excursuses. This was used as early as the 5th Century BC by the poet

Pindar Pindar (; grc-gre, Πίνδαρος , ; la, Pindarus; ) was an Ancient Greek lyric poet from Thebes. Of the canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, his work is the best preserved. Quintilian wrote, "Of the nine lyric poets, Pindar is ...

. The most famous case of etymologies being used as excursuses is in the ''

Golden Legend The ''Golden Legend'' (Latin: ''Legenda aurea'' or ''Legenda sanctorum'') is a collection of hagiographies by Jacobus de Voragine that was widely read in late medieval Europe. More than a thousand manuscripts of the text have survived.Hilary ...

'' (''ca.'' 1260) of

Jacobus de Voragine Jacobus de Voragine (c. 123013/16 July 1298) was an Italian chronicler and archbishop of Genoa. He was the author, or more accurately the compiler, of the ''Golden Legend'', a collection of the legendary lives of the greater saints of the medie ...

, in which the life of each saint is proceeded by an etymology about the origin of the saint's name.

References

Literary concepts {{Lit-stub