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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 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 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 heretranslated 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 biographyin 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 humanarts 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.
Medieval Obscenities
"Medieval Obscenities examines the complex and contentious role of the obscene - what is offensive, indecent or morally repugnant - in medieval culture from late antiquity through to the end of the middle ages in western Europe. Its approach is multidisciplinary, its methodologies divergent and it seeks to formulate questions and stimulate debate." "The essays examine topics as diverse as Norse defecation taboos, the Anglo-Saxon sexual idiom, sheela-na-gigs, impotence in the church courts, bare ecclesiastical bottoms, rude sounds and dirty words, as well as the modern reception and representation of the medieval obscene. The volume demonstrates not only the vitality of medieval obscenity, but its centrality to our understanding of medieval life."--Jacket.
Literary Theory and Criticism in the Later Middle Ages
"Literary Theory and Criticism in the Later Middle Ages This collection makes a new, profound and far-reaching intervention into the rich yet little-explored terrain between Latin scholastic theory and vernacular literatures. Written by a multidisciplinary team of leading international authors, the chapters honour and advance Alastair Minnis' field-defining scholarship. A wealth of expert essays refract the nuances of theory through the medium of authoritative Latin and vernacular medieval texts, providing fresh interpretative treatment to known canonical works while also bringing unknown materials to light"--
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.
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.
Magister Amoris: The Roman de la Rose and Vernacular Hermeneutics
The Roman de la Rose was a major bestseller - largely due to its robust treatment of 'natural' sexuality. This study concentrates on the ways in which Jean de Meun, in imitation of Ovid, assumed the mock-magisterium (or mastership) of love. From Latin texts and literary theory Jean derived many hermeneutic rationales and generic categorizations, without allowing any one to dominate. Alastair J. Minnis considers allegorical versus literalistic expression in the poem, its competing discourses of allegorical covering and satiric stripping, Jean's provocative use of plain and sometimes obscene language in a widely accessible French work, the challenge of its homosocial and perhaps even homoerotic constructions, the subversive effects of coital comedy within a text characterized by intermittent aspirations to moral and scientific truth, and - placing the Rose's reception within the European history of vernacular hermeneutics - the problematic translation of literary authority from Latin into the vulgar tongue.
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.
