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Chaucer and Pagan Antiquity
Professor Minnis argues that the paganism in Troilus and Criseyde and The Knight's Taleis not simply a backdrop but must be central to our understanding of the texts. Chaucer's two great pagan poems, Troilus and Criseyde and The Knight's Tale, belong to the literary genre known as the `romance of antiquity' (which first appeard in the mid 12th century), in which the ancient pagan world is shown on its own terms, without the blatant Christian bias against paganism characteristic of works like the Chanson de Roland, where the writer is concerned with present-day rather than classical forms of paganism. Chaucer's attitudes to antiquity were influenced, but not determined, by those found in the ...
Medieval Theory of Authorship
It has often been held that scholasticism destroyed the literary theory that was emerging during the twelfth-century Renaissance, and hence discussion of late medieval literary works has tended to derive its critical vocabulary from modern, not medieval, theory. In Medieval Theory of Authorship, now reissued with a new preface by the author, Alastair Minnis asks, "Is it not better to search again for a conceptual equipment which is at once historically valid and theoretically illuminating?" Minnis has found such writings in the glosses and commentaries on the authoritative Latin writers studied in schools and universities between 1100 and 1400. The prologues to these commentaries provide valuable insight into the medieval theory of authorship. Of special significance is scriptural exegesis, for medieval scholars found the Bible the most difficult text to describe appropriately and accurately.
From Eden to Eternity
Introduction : creating paradise -- ch. 1. The body in Eden. Creating bodies ; Bodily functions ; The pleasures of paradise ; Being fruitful and multiplying ; The children of Eden ; What Adam knew ; Creating souls ; Eden as human habitat -- ch. 2. Power in paradise. Dominion over the animals ; Domestic dominion : the origins of economics ; Power and gender ; Unequal men : the origins of politics ; Power and possession : the origins of ownership ; The insubordinate fall -- ch. 3. Death and the paradise beyond. The death of the animal ; The body returns ; Representing paradise : from Eden to the patria ; Perfecting children's bodies ; Rewarding inequality ; Negotiating the material ; Resurrecting the senses ; Somewhere over the rainbow -- Coda : between paradises.
Chaucer's Boece and the Medieval Tradition of Boethius
Chaucer's translation of Boethius' work is related to medieval intellectual culture, with attention to Trevet's Boethius commentary. This collection seeks to locate the Boece within the medievaltradition of the academic study and translation of the Consolatiophilosophiae, thereby relating the work to the intellectual culturewhich made it possible.It begins with the fullest study yet undertakenof the Boethius commentary of Nicholas Trevet, this being a majorsource of the Boece. There follow editions and translationsof the major passages in Trevet's commentary whereNeoplatonic issuesare confronted, then Chaucer's debt to Trevet is assessed in a detailedreview. The many choices which faced Chaucer as a translator are indicated and the Boeceis placed in a long line of interpreters of Boethius in which both Latin commentators and vernacular translators played their parts. Finally, a view is offered of the Boece as anexample of late-medieval `academic translation': if the Boeceis assigned to this genre, it may be judged a considerable success.
Historians on Chaucer
Historians on Chaucer brings together 25 experts in the history of fourteenth-century England to discuss one of the most famous works of Middle English literature--Geoffrey Chaucer's 'General Prologue' to the Canterbury Tales--in relation to the economic change, social issues, and religious controversies of the period.
Medieval Theory of Authorship
When first published in 1984, Medieval Theory of Authorship was hailed as a milestone in the study of medieval literary criticism. As a reassessment of the significance of the scholastic contribution to hermeneutics, it argues forcefully, to quote one reviewer, 'for a repositioning of our historical perspective on late medieval textual theory'.It has often been held that scholasticism destroyed the literary theory which was emerging during the twelfth-century Renaissance, and hence discussion of late-medieval literary works has tended to derive its critical vocabulary from modern, not medieval, theory. The arts of preaching and poetry offer little about the principles and status of literatur...
Handling Sin
This volume comprises papers delivered at a conference held by the University of York's Centre for Medieval Studies at King's Manor, York, on March 9th, 1996, under the title Confession in Medieval Culture and Society.
Medieval Literary Theory and Criticism C.1100 - C.1375
This anthology of texts in translation, here presented in a fully revised and updated form, covers the single most important branch of medieval literary theory and criticism, the commentary tradition, in one of the most significant periods of its development. The majority of the texts are here translated for the first time; most of the translations have been prepared specially for this edition. They offer discussion of such topics as fiction and fable (in classical poetry and in the Bible); the ethical effects and purpose of literature; authorship and authority; the function of biography in literary interpretation; stylistic and didactic modes of writing; literary form and structure; allegory and literal-historical sense; symbolism; imagination and imagery; the semiotics of words and things, the moralization of classical texts; the status of poetry within the hierarchy of the human arts and sciences; and the prestige and purpose of vernacular literature. The selections are fully annotated and provided with introductions which form a linked series of essays towards the history of medieval literary theory and criticism.
Fallible Authors
Can an outrageously immoral man or a scandalous woman teach morality or lead people to virtue? Does personal fallibility devalue one's words and deeds? Is it possible to separate the private from the public, to segregate individual failing from official function? Chaucer addressed these perennial issues through two problematic authority figures, the Pardoner and the Wife of Bath. The Pardoner dares to assume official roles to which he has no legal claim and for which he is quite unsuited. We are faced with the shocking consequences of the belief, standard for the time, that immorality is not necessarily a bar to effective ministry. Even more subversively, the Wife of Bath, who represents one...
