Abstract
The presented contribution deals with the work of the monk and abbot Adomnán of Iona (624-704). Vita Columbae is one of the most significant literary works which originated in the second half of the 7th century in the British Isles.
The work comprising of two prologues and three books can be seen not only as a valuable historical source containing information about the life of the missionary and founder of Iona Abbey, Saint Columba (521-597), but also as a significant Early medieval example of the genre of legend. From the literary point of view, it is a very interesting and elaborated text whose conception is based on the older literary tradition, but which also comes with a great number of innovations.
We can see there for example an inspiration from popular early Christian hagiographic text by Athanasius (c. 295 - c. 373) Vita Antonii or an influence by the legend Vita Martini by Sulpicius Severus (360-420) which can be, with a bit of exaggeration, considered a medieval bestseller. As it is typical for this genre, Vita Columbae oscillates between biography and hagiography.
The main goal of this contribution is to present the narrative strategy Adomnán used in his writing and point out the way how he adapts the narrative techniques of his literary predecessors to his own text. Methodologically, the text analysis is supported by the narratological theory based mainly on the classic conception of Schlomith Rimmon-Kenan outlined in the monography Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics (1983).
This theory has been recently applied in text analysis in Medieval Latin Studies parallel with other more traditional approaches. The actual analysis is focused mainly on the analysis of Adomnán's narrative strategy in Vita Columbae, especially on defining the narrator type.