Items related to Relics and Writing in Late Medieval England
Relics and Writing in Late Medieval England uncovers a wide-ranging medieval discourse that had an expansive influence on English literary traditions. Drawing from Latin and vernacular hagiography, miracle stories, relic lists, and architectural history, this study demonstrates that, as the shrines of England’s major saints underwent dramatic changes from c. 1100 to c. 1538, relic discourse became important not only in constructing the meaning of objects that were often hidden, but also for canonical authors like Chaucer and Malory in exploring the function of metaphor and of dissembling language.
Robyn Malo argues that relic discourse was employed in order to critique mainstream religious practice, explore the consequences of rhetorical dissimulation, and consider the effect on the socially disadvantaged of lavish expenditure on shrines. The work thus uses the literary study of relics to address issues of clerical and lay cultures, orthodoxy and heterodoxy, and writing and reform.
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About the Author:
Robyn Malo is an asociate professor in the Department of English at Purdue University.
Review:
“I found this an exceptional and beautifully written meditation on shrines, relics, and their profound cultural significance in the Middle Ages. Robyn Malo’s approach to the significance of relics, relic discourse and attitudes to bodies, both of the living and the dead, took me beyond the outstanding work done by Duffy and Bynum in this domain. To be able to contribute to an important field well worked by some brilliant historians is a remarkable achievement.”
(David Aers, James B. Duke Professor of English and Historical Theology, Duke University)“Beautifully written, both rhetorically and stylistically, this book exhibits a depth of erudition and a scintillating sophistication that one rarely finds in an interdisciplinary study. Robyn Malo bases her synthesis of social history, the history of devotion, relics and reliquaries and literary history in the relevant scholarship, yet always provides new perspectives as she articulates her overarching thesis about ‘relic discourse’ with utter clarity.”
(Kathleen Ashley, Professor of English, University of Southern Maine)"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherUniversity of Toronto Press
- Publication date2014
- ISBN 10 1442628499
- ISBN 13 9781442628496
- BindingPaperback
- Edition number1
- Number of pages308
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