The Ethics of Reading in Manuscript Culture - Hardcover

Dagenais, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0691032467 ISBN 13: 9780691032467

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 1994

Synopsis

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.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

"A superb work that should revolutionize medieval Spanish studies in general and understanding of theLibro de buen amor in particular. Further, John Dagenais's remarks on the process of editing a medieval text is, are going to occasion very serious reflection on both subjects."--James F. Burke, University of Toronto

About the Author:

John Dagenais is Associate Professor of Hispanic Studies at Northwestern University.

About this edition

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0691032467
• ISBN 13: 9780691032467
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304