Abstrakt
Cento poetry provides an excellent source of material for the study of various phenomena related to the context and contextualisation. Individual elements (fragments) in the texts are clearly delimited, which makes it much easier to distinguish between the 'contextualised' and the context.
In addition, every fragment is tied at least in two different contexts - the reference to the original Virgilian text which is retrieved (ideally) from the reader's memory, and the context created through the new configuration of the quoted fragments in the cento. The second context can refresh the meanings of the individual fragments, which were potentially present but suppressed in the original context.
Under this superficial context, a deeper strategy can be discerned, employed by the centonists to reposition the elements of the original texts in the new semantic structure of their poems - e.g. the 'leading reminiscence' (Leitreminiszenzen), repeated references to a single passage from the original text; 'analogical allusions' to similar passages in the original text (typically descriptions of similar people or things) which turn the whole cento passage to a sort of abstraction from the original text; 'synergic allusions' that are semantically too vague to inspire association with the original passage, but their repetition (e.g. within the 'leading reminiscence') reinforces the allusive potential of the quotes; or the indirect (contextual) allusion, which is designed to evoke a specific part of the immediate context of the original text.