Translations of Authority in Medieval English Literature

Valuing the Vernacular
1. Auflage 2011
ISBN: 978-1-107-40394-9
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 290 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 474 g

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.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Minnis, Alastair

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Sonstige Religionen Sonstige Religionen: Theologie, Doktrine
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturwissenschaft

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction
1. Absent glosses: the trouble with Middle English hermeneutics
2. Looking for a sign: the quest for Nominalism in Ricardian poetry
3. Piers' protean pardon: Langland on the letter and spirit of indulgences
4. Making bodies: confection and conception in Walter Brut's vernacular theology
5. Spiritualizing marriage: Margery Kempe's allegories of female authority
6. Chaucer and the relics of vernacular religion.