The Ethics of Reading in Manuscript Culture

The Ethics of Reading in Manuscript Culture PDF Author: John Dagenais
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 140082107X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 303

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Book Description
Reexamining the roles played by author, reader, scribe, and text in medieval literary practice, John Dagenais argues that the entire physical manuscript must be the basis of any discussion of how meaning was made. Medievalists, he maintains, have relied too heavily on critical editions that seek to create a single, definitive text reflecting an author's intentions. In reality, manuscripts bear not only authorial texts but also a variety of elements added by scribes and readers: glosses, marginal notes, pointing hands, illuminations, and fragments of other, seemingly unrelated works. Using the surviving manuscripts of the fourteenth-century Libro de buen amor, a work that has been read both as didactic treatise on spiritual love and as a celebration of sensual pleasures, Dagenais shows how consideration of the physical manuscripts and their cultural context can shed new light on interpretive issues that have puzzled modern readers. Dagenais also addresses the theory and practice of reading in the Middle Ages, showing that for medieval readers the text on the manuscript leaf, including the text of the Libro, was primarily rhetorical and ethical in nature. It spoke to them directly, individually, always in the present moment. Exploring the margins of the manuscripts of the Libro and of other Iberian works, Dagenais reveals how medieval readers continually reshaped their texts, both physically and ethically as they read, and argues that the context of medieval manuscript culture forces us to reconsider such comfortable received notions as "text" and "literature" and the theories we have based upon them.

The Ethics of Reading in Manuscript Culture

The Ethics of Reading in Manuscript Culture PDF Author: John Dagenais
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 140082107X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 303

Get Book Here

Book Description
Reexamining the roles played by author, reader, scribe, and text in medieval literary practice, John Dagenais argues that the entire physical manuscript must be the basis of any discussion of how meaning was made. Medievalists, he maintains, have relied too heavily on critical editions that seek to create a single, definitive text reflecting an author's intentions. In reality, manuscripts bear not only authorial texts but also a variety of elements added by scribes and readers: glosses, marginal notes, pointing hands, illuminations, and fragments of other, seemingly unrelated works. Using the surviving manuscripts of the fourteenth-century Libro de buen amor, a work that has been read both as didactic treatise on spiritual love and as a celebration of sensual pleasures, Dagenais shows how consideration of the physical manuscripts and their cultural context can shed new light on interpretive issues that have puzzled modern readers. Dagenais also addresses the theory and practice of reading in the Middle Ages, showing that for medieval readers the text on the manuscript leaf, including the text of the Libro, was primarily rhetorical and ethical in nature. It spoke to them directly, individually, always in the present moment. Exploring the margins of the manuscripts of the Libro and of other Iberian works, Dagenais reveals how medieval readers continually reshaped their texts, both physically and ethically as they read, and argues that the context of medieval manuscript culture forces us to reconsider such comfortable received notions as "text" and "literature" and the theories we have based upon them.

Festschrift

Festschrift PDF Author: A. D. Deyermond
Publisher: Tamesis
ISBN: 9781855660519
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 594

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Book Description
Distinguished scholars from both sides of the Atlantic make a major contribution to medieval literary studies in contributions ranging from early epic to Fernando de Rojas. Studies on cuaderna via' verse and the poets of the cancionero' figure prominently, as do the Libro de buen amor' and Celestina'; these are complemented by individual essays on texts outside the mainstream, on the language and versification of the period, on the prose writers of the fifteenth century, and on literary activity in Catalonia, Galicia and Portugal. The collection demonstrates the range of interest and approach characteristic of recent Hispanic scholarship, and provides new insights into the medieval mind at work in the Iberian peninsula. IAN MACPHERSON is former Professor of Spanish, University of Durham; RALPH PENNY is Professor of Romance Philology, Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London. Studies in Honour of Professor Alan Deyermond, Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London. Contributors: LOLA BADIA, RAFAEL BELTRAN, CHARLES BURNETT, LLUIS CABRE, ROSANNA CANTAVELLA, PEDRO CATEDRA, JUAN CARLOS CONDE LOPEZ, MARTIN DUFFELL, JOSE FRADEJAS LEBRERO, JOSE MANUEL FRADEJAS RUEDA, JOHN GORNALL, L.P. HARVEY, THOMAS R. HART, LOUISE M. HAYWOOD, DAVID HOOK, VICTOR INFANTES DE MIGUEL, JEREMY LAWRENCE, HELDER MACEDO, IAN MACPHERSON, IAN MICHAEL, ALBERTO MONTANER FRUTOS, D.G. PATTISON, RALPH PENNY, STEPHEN RECKERT, FRANCISCO RICO, REGULA ROHLAND DE LANGBEHN, NICHOLAS G. ROUND, PETER RUSSELL, DOROTHY S. SEVERIN, COLIN SMITH, BARRY TAYLOR, ARTHUR TERRY, J.E. VAREY, JULIAN WEISS, GEOFFREY WEST, JANE WHETNALL.

Textual Cultures, Cultural Texts

Textual Cultures, Cultural Texts PDF Author: Orietta Da Rold
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1843842394
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
New essays reappraising the history of the book, manuscripts, and texts.

The Cambridge Companion to the History of the Book

The Cambridge Companion to the History of the Book PDF Author: Leslie Howsam
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107023734
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 301

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Book Description
An accessible and wide-ranging study of the history of the book within local, national and global contexts.

Reading the World

Reading the World PDF Author: Mary Franklin-Brown
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226260682
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 474

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Book Description
The thirteenth century saw such a proliferation of new encyclopedic texts that more than one scholar has called it the “century of the encyclopedias.” Variously referred to as a speculum, thesaurus, or imago mundi—the term encyclopedia was not commonly applied to such books until the eighteenth century—these texts were organized in such a way that a reader could easily locate a collection of authoritative statements on any given topic. Because they reproduced, rather than simply summarized, parts of prior texts, these compilations became libraries in miniature. In this groundbreaking study, Mary Franklin-Brown examines writings in Latin, Catalan, and French that are connected to the encyclopedic movement: Vincent of Beauvais’s Speculum maius; Ramon Llull’s Libre de meravelles, Arbor scientiae, and Arbre de filosofia d’amor; and Jean de Meun’s continuation of the Roman de la Rose. Franklin-Brown analyzes the order of knowledge in these challenging texts, describing the wide-ranging interests, the textual practices—including commentary, compilation, and organization—and the diverse discourses that they absorb from preexisting classical, patristic, and medieval writing. She also demonstrates how these encyclopedias, like libraries, became “heterotopias” of knowledge—spaces where many possible ways of knowing are juxtaposed. But Franklin-Brown’s study will not appeal only to historians: she argues that a revised understanding of late medievalism makes it possible to discern a close connection between scholasticism and contemporary imaginative literature. She shows how encyclopedists employed the same practices of figuration, narrative, and citation as poets and romanciers, while much of the difficulty of the imaginative writing of this period derives from a juxtaposition of heterogeneous discourses inspired by encyclopedias. With rich and innovative readings of texts both familiar and neglected, Reading the World reveals how the study of encyclopedism can illuminate both the intellectual work and the imaginative writing of the scholastic age.

Controlling Readers

Controlling Readers PDF Author: Deborah L. McGrady
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1442615540
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 349

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Book Description
Guillaume de Machaut (1300-1377) was the master poet of fourteenth-century France. He established models for much of the vernacular poetry written by subsequent generations, and he was instrumental in institutionalizing the lay reader. In particular, his longest and most important work, the Voir dit, calls attention to the coexistence of public and private reading practices through its intensely hybrid form: sixty-three poems and ten songs invite an oral performance, while forty-six private prose letters as well as elaborate illustration and references to it's own materiality promote a physical encounter with the book. In Controlling Readers, Deborah McGrady uses Machaut's corpus as a case study to explore the impact of lay literacy on the culture of late-medieval Europe. Arguing that Machaut and his bookmakers were responding to contemporary debates surrounding literacy, McGrady first accounts for the formal invention of the lay reader in medieval art and literature, then analyses Machaut and his bookmakers' innovative use of both narrative and bibliographical devices to try to control the responses of his readers and promote intimate and sensual reading practices in place of the more common public performances of court culture. McGrady's erudite and exhaustive study is key to understanding Machaut, his works, and his influence on the history of reading in the fourteenth-century and beyond.

Gender and Exemplarity in Medieval and Early Modern Spain

Gender and Exemplarity in Medieval and Early Modern Spain PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004438440
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description
Gender and Exemplarity in Medieval and Early Modern Spain gathers a series of studies on the interplay between gender, sanctity and exemplarity in regard to literary production in the Iberian peninsula. The first section examines how women were con¬strued as saintly examples through narratives, mostly composed by male writers; the second focuses on the use made of exemplary life-accounts by women writers in order to fashion their own social identity and their role as authors. The volume includes studies on relevant models (Mary Magdalen, Virgin Mary, living saints), means of transmission, sponsorship and agency (reading circles, print, patronage), and female writers (Leonor López de Córdoba, Isabel de Villena, Teresa of Ávila) involved in creating textual exemplars for women. Contributors are: Pablo Acosta-García, Andrew M. Beresford, Jimena Gamba Corradine, Ryan D. Giles, María Morrás, Lesley K. Twomey, Roa Vidal Doval, and Christopher van Ginhoven Rey.

High Way to Heaven: The Augustinian Platform Between Reform and Reformation, 1292-1524

High Way to Heaven: The Augustinian Platform Between Reform and Reformation, 1292-1524 PDF Author: Eric Leland Saak
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004474595
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 901

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Book Description
This volume reveals the political, religious, theological, institutional, and mythical ideals that formed the self-identity of the Augustinian Order from Giles of Rome to the emergence of Martin Luther. Based on detailed philological analysis, this interdisciplinary study not only transforms the understanding of Augustine's heritage in the later Middle Ages, but also that of Luther's relationship to his Order. The work offers a new interpretative model of late medieval religious culture that sheds new light on the relationship between late medieval Passion devotion, the increasing demonization of the Jews, and the rise of catechetical literature. It is the first volume of a planned trilogy that seeks to return late medieval Augustinian theology to the historical context of Augustinian religion.

The Arthur of the French

The Arthur of the French PDF Author:
Publisher: University of Wales Press
ISBN: 1786837439
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 652

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Book Description
This major reference work is the fourth volume in the series "Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages". Its intention is to update the French and Occitan chapters in R.S. Loomis’ "Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages: A Collaborative History" (Oxford, 1959) and to provide a volume which will serve the needs of students and scholars of Arthurian literature. The principal focus is the production, dissemination and evolution of Arthurian material in French and Occitan from the twelfth to the fifteenth century. Beginning with a substantial overview of Arthurian manuscripts, the volume covers writing in both verse (Wace, the Tristan legend, Chretien de Troyes and the Grail Continuations, Marie de France and the anonymous lays, the lesser known romances) and prose (the Vulgate Cycle, the prose Tristan, the Post-Vulgate Roman du Graal, etc.).

Medieval Iberia

Medieval Iberia PDF Author: E. Michael Gerli
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113677162X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 951

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Book Description
As the first comprehensive reference to the vital world of medieval Spain, this unique volume focuses on the Iberian kingdoms from the fall of the Roman Empire to the aftermath of the Reconquista. The nearly 1,000 signed A-Z entries, written by renowned specialists in the field, encompass topics of key relevance to medieval Iberia, including people, events, works, and institutions, as well as interdisciplinary coverage of literature, language, history, arts, folklore, religion, and science. Also providing in-depth discussions of the rich contributions of Muslim and Jewish cultures, and offering useful insights into their interactions with Catholic Spain, this comprehensive work is an invaluable tool for students, scholars, and general readers alike. For a full list of entries and contributors, a generous selection of sample entries, and more, visit the Medieval Iberia: An Encyclopedia website.