Readings In Medieval Texts

Readings in Medieval Texts offers a thorough and accessible introduction to the interpretation and criticism of a broad range of Old and Middle English canonical texts from the ninth to the fifteenth centuries. The volume brings together 24 newly commissioned chapters by a leading international team of medieval scholars. An introductory chapter highlights the overarching trends in the composition of English Literature in the Medieval periods, and provides an overview of the textual continuities and innovations. Individual chapters give detailed information about context, authorship, date, and critical views on texts, before providing fascinating and thought-provoking examinations of crucial excerpts and themes. This book will be invaluable for undergraduate and graduate students on all courses in Medieval Studies, particularly those focusing on understanding literature and its role in society.

This collection brings together twelve original essays by prominent medievalists which address problems posed by contemporary literary and cultural theory. Taken together, the essays call into question the view that contemporary criticism has little to say about medieval literature and that medieval studies should remain isolated from the issues of contemporary criticism. The contributors apply a variety of critical methodologies to explore issues in textuality, intertextuality, and the role of the reader in works of medieval writers as diverse as Chaucer, Dante, Christine de Pizan, Anselm, and Talavera. Incorporating critical approaches such as deconstructionism, Marxism, feminism, new-historicism and reader-response criticism, the essays place these writers and their texts within a wider realm of cultural reference that embraces philosophy, religion, rhetoric, history, politics, and anthropology.

This collection of essays makes an original contribution to medieval manuscript studies through deep engagement with the material side of book creation. The volume brings together major scholars of medieval manuscripts with leading contemporary book artists. The result is a ground-breaking collection which will be of interest both for its methodological implications and for the insights that the case studies provide. In a sequence of interconnected essays, experts in the field of literature, history, art, and manuscript studies enact readings of medieval manuscripts that incorporate extreme attention to the materiality of the object of their study. While the digital revolution has provided unparalleled visual access to medieval manuscripts, these essays are attentive to what has got left behind-not just the aura of the original, but also the engagement of the other senses, such as the feel of the binding, the heft of the volume, the smell of the parchment, or the sound of the pages. By bringing together experienced medievalist scholars with practicing book artists of today, this volume brings back an artisanal sense of the complete book to an understanding of medieval manuscripts.

Skin is a multifarious image in medieval culture: the material basis for forming a sense of self and relation to the world, as well as a powerful literary and visual image. This book explores the presence of skin in medieval literature and culture from a range of literary, religious, aesthetic, historical, medical, and theoretical perspectives.

Annotations in modern books are a phenomenon that often causes disapproval: we are not supposed to draw, doodle, underline, or highlight in our books. In many medieval manuscripts, however, the pages are filled with annotations around the text and in-between the lines. In some cases, a 'white space' around the text is even laid out to contain extra text, pricked and ruled for the purpose. Just as footnotes are an approved and standard part of the modern academic book, so the flyleaves, margins, and interlinear spaces of many medieval manuscripts are an invitation to add extra text. This volume focuses on annotation in the early medieval period. In treating manuscripts as mirrors of the medieval minds who created them - reflecting their interests, their choices, their practices - the essays explore a number of key topics. Are there certain genres in which the making of annotations seems to be more appropriate or common than in others? Are there genres in which annotating is 'not done'? Are there certain monastic centres in which annotating practices flourish, and from which they spread? The volume thus investigates whether early medieval annotators used specific techniques, perhaps identifiable with their scribal communities or schools. It explores what annotators actually sought to accomplish with their annotations, and how the techniques of annotating developed over time and per region.

This book argues for a radically new approach to the history of reading and literacy in the Middle Ages.

Medieval literature is separated from us by so many centuries that it may seem completely foreign, both in its concerns and its techniques. However, this literature has much to say to 21st century readers and Steinberg's book demonstrates its continuing relevance and appeal. This introduction to medieval literature provides some of the cultural context that readers need to know in order to understand the literature, such as the religious orientation of the people, often deep and sincere but sometimes treated casually or subjected to intense scrutiny. The first chapter provides a brief explanation of medieval religious thought, cosmology and intellectual history. The remaining chapters provide introductions to a number of individual works ranging from Beowulf to the works of Chaucer. Avoiding the tendency to regard the Middle Ages as an era dominated by Christian men, these discussions include works by women writers and Jewish writers and a chapter on the medieval Japanese masterpiece The Tale of Genji. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.