Translations of Authority in Medieval English Literature: Valuing the Vernacular - Hardcover

Minnis, Alastair

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0521515947 ISBN 13: 9780521515948

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2009

Synopsis

In Translations of Authority in Medieval English Literature, leading critic Alastair Minnis presents the fruits of a long-term engagement with the ways in which crucial ideological issues were deployed in vernacular texts. The concept of the vernacular is seen as possessing a value far beyond the category of language - as encompassing popular beliefs and practices which could either confirm or contest those authorized by church and state institutions. Minnis addresses the crisis for vernacular translation precipitated by the Lollard heresy; the minimal engagement with Nominalism in late fourteenth-century poetry; Langland's views on indulgences; the heretical theology of Walter Brut; Margery Kempe's self-promoting biblical exegesis; and Chaucer's tales of suspicious saints and risible relics. These discussions disclose different aspects of 'vernacularity', enabling a fuller understanding of its complexity and potency.

About this title

Book Description

Leading critic Alastair Minnis investigates the relationships between authority and the vernacular in a range of texts from late medieval England. The significance of 'vernacularity' is discussed with reference to court patronage of literature, textual commentary, heretical doctrine, and tales of suspicious saints and relics.

About the Author

Alastair Minnis is the Douglas Tracy Smith Professor of English at Yale University. Recent authored works include Magister Amoris: The 'Roman de la Rose' and Vernacular Hermeneutics (2001); and Fallible Authors: Chaucer's Pardoner and Wife of Bath (2007). In addition, he has edited or co-edited fourteen other books, including (with Ian Johnson) The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism, vol. 2: The Middle Ages (2005). He is also the General Editor of Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0521515947
• ISBN 13: 9780521515948
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288