Literary Theory And Criticism In The Later Middle Ages

This book studies attitudes toward secular literature during the later Middle Ages. Exploring two related medieval justifications of literary pleasure—one finding hygienic or therapeutic value in entertainment, and another stressing the psychological and ethical rewards of taking time out from work in order to refresh oneself—Glending Olson reveals that, contrary to much recent opinion, many medieval writers and thinkers accepted delight and enjoyment as valid goals of literature without always demanding moral profit as well. Drawing on a vast amount of primary material, including contemporary medical manuscripts and printed texts, Olson discusses theatrics, humanist literary criticism, prologues to romances and fabliaux, and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. He offers an extended examination of the framing story of Boccaccio's Decameron. Although intended principally as a contribution to the history of medieval literary theory and criticism, Literature as Recreation in the Later Middle Ages makes use of medical, psychological, and sociological insights that lead to a fuller understanding of late medieval secular culture.

This collection makes a new, profound and far-reaching intervention into the rich yet little-explored terrain between Latin scholastic theory and vernacular literature. Written by a multidisciplinary team of leading international authors, the chapters honour and advance Alastair Minnis's 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.

"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"--

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.

In England literary consciousness had its beginning in the middle ages, and this book, originally published in 1943, describes and illustrates the first phases of the growth of a tradition of criticism. It does not confine itself to writers whose interest was in the vernacular, for there was a larger European movement of which English criticism was a part. It embodied much of the ancient teaching, but it shows recurring efforts to arrive at the nature and art of poetry; it provides a key to contemporary literature and is of great help in understanding what really happened at the 16th Century Renaissance.

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.

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 literature. 'Is it not better to search again', asks Dr Minnis, 'for a conceptual equipment which is at once historically valid and theoretically illuminating?'He finds such a range of writings in the glosses and commentaries on the authoritative Latin writers or auctores, studied in the schools and universities in the period 1100 to 1400. In particular, the prologues to these commentaries are valuable repositories of medieval theory of authorship, that is, literary theory centred on the crucial concepts of auctor and auctoritas. Of special significance is Scriptural exegesis, for medieval scholars found the Bible the most difficult text to describe accurately and adequately: as a consequence the literary theory in question received its most elaborate and sophisticated expression in the writings of theologians.Scholastic literary discourse had a wide influence, its idioms appearing in European vernacular works as well as in Medieval Latin literature. It influenced the attitudes which major writers - including Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Gower and Chaucer - had towards the moral value and stylistic significance of their writings, many aspects of which will have to be reconsidered in the light of this provocative book.

This is the first-ever history of the literary theory and criticism produced during the Middle Ages that covers all the main traditions in Latin, the major European vernaculars and Byzantine Greek. Starting with the study of grammar and the formal 'arts' of poetry, letter-writing and preaching, it proceeds to offer a full description of the Latin commentary tradition on classical and classicising literature, followed by explanations of medieval views on literary imagination and memory and the ways in which certain texts were believed to achieve moral profit through pleasure. Subsequent essays explore the diverse theoretical and critical traditions which developed in the vernacular languages, ranging from Medieval Irish to Old Norse, Occitan to Middle High German, concentrating particularly on Dante and his commentators and Italian humanist criticism. The volume concludes with an examination of the attitudes to literature and its uses in Greek Byzantium.