You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Leading critic Alastair Minnis investigates the relationships between authority and the vernacular in the literature of late medieval England.
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.
Minnis presents the fruits of a long-term engagement with the ways in which crucial ideological issues were deployed in vernacular texts. He addresses the crisis for vernacular translation precipitated by the Lollard heresy, Langland's views on indulgences, Chaucer's tales of suspicious saints and risible relics, and more.
An introductory essay by Peter Biller on medieval and contemporary concerns with the body is followed by Alcuin Blamire's examination of the paradoxes inherent in the metaphor of man as head, woman as body, in authors ranging from St Augustine to Christine de Pizan. Peter Abelard, a writer who 'dislocated' this image, is the principal figure of the next two papers. David Luscombe's study looks successively at Abelard's view of the role of senses in relation to thought and mind, the problem of body in resurrected beings, and dualities in his correspondence with Heloise. W.G.
This volume is the first trilateral exploration of medieval scriptural interpretation. The vast literature written during the medieval period is one of both great diversity and numerous cross-cultural similarities. These essays explore this rich heritage of biblical and qur'anic interpretation.
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 ...
Western literary, philosophical, and religious traditions from Plato and Paul to Augustine and Avicenna have utilized, exploited, or been subjected to allegorical interpretation. Naturally developing a composite picture of interpretive allegory from such a large landscape faces numerous difficulties. As the editor puts it, “to imagine a ‘definitive’ account of the theory and practice of allegorical interpretation in the West would require something of an allegorical vision in its own right.” With that caveat in mind, however, the international team of contributors—from a variety of disciplines—offers a “historical and conceptual framework” for understanding interpretive allegory in the West, from antiquity through the early and late medieval and renaissance periods, and from the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries. This publication has also been published in hardback, please click here for details.
Material on the production and transmission of medieval literature and the early formation of the canon of English poetry. A wide range of poets is covered - Chaucer, Gower, Hoccleve, the Gawain poet, Langland, and Lydgate, along with the translator of Claudian's De Consulatu Stilichonis. The Turnament of Totenham is read in termsof theory of the carnivalesque and popular culture, and major contributions are made to current linguistic, editorial and codicological controversies. Going beyond the Middle Ages, the book also considers the sixteenth-century reception of Chaucer's Legend of Good Women and Post-Reformation reading of Lydgate. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the production and transmission of medieval literature, and in the early formation of the canon of English poetry. Contributors: JULIA BOFFEY, J.A. BURROW, CHRISTOPHER CANNON, MARTHA DRIVER, SIAN ECHARD, A.S.G. EDWARDS, KATE D. HARRIS, S.S. HUSSEY, KATHRYN KERBY-FULTON, CAROL M. MEALE, LINNE R. MOONEY, CHARLOTTE C. MORSE, V.I.J. SCATTERGOOD, ELIZABETH SOLOPOVA, ESTELLE STUBBS, JOHN THOMPSON.
Essays concerned with the transmission of Boethian philosophy and poetry also relate to medieval translation practice, the emergence of European literature, reception history, and manuscript studies. 'Knowledge of the understanding of Boethius inthe middle ages is considerably enhanced. 'REVIEW OF ENGLISH STUDIES
No detailed description available for "Contexts of Pre-Novel Narrative".