This book first appeared in German in 1985, and set a new agenda for the study of medieval literary theory. While Haug focuses primarily on medieval German writers, the principles underlying his argument are equally relevant to medieval literature in English or any other European language. This ground-breaking study is now available in English for the first time.

This is the first major study of the cultural role of grammatica, the central discipline concerned with literacy, language, and literature in early medieval society. Martin Irvine draws together several aspects of medieval culture--literary theory, the nature of literacy, education, Biblical interpretation, linguistic thought--in order to reveal the more far-reaching social effects of grammatica in medieval culture. The book is based on new and previously neglected sources, many of which have been edited from medieval manuscripts for the first time.

This book offers new insights into the rich and varied Dutch literature of the Middle Ages. Sixteen essays written by top scholars consider this literature in the context of the social, historical and cultural developments of the period in which it took shape. The collection includes studies of the most representative authors, genres and works of the time. A comparative chronological survey provides an overview of the main cultural, historical and literary events in Europe and the Netherlands between 1150 and 1500, and the bibliography lists English translations of medieval Dutch texts...

This is the first literary study of the career of Richard Rolle (d. 1349), a Yorkshire hermit and mystic who was one of the most widely-read English writers of the late Middle Ages. Nicholas Watson proposes a new chronology of Rolle's writings, and offers the first literary analyses of a number of his works. He shows how Rolle's career, as a writer of passionate religious works in Latin and later in English, has as its principal focus the establishment of his own spiritual authority. The book also addresses wider issues, suggesting a new way of looking at mystical writing in general, and...

In addition to the main traditions in Medieval Latin and Byzantine Greek, this comprehensive introduction to the literary theory and criticism produced during the Middle Ages covers all major European vernaculars, ranging from Irish to Old Norse, from Occitan to Middle High German and Italian. Special attention is given to the contribution of Dante Alighieri and his commentators, along with the debates on the relative merits of Latin and the Italian vernacular, and the literary attitudes of the early humanists.

In this full-length study of the early history of greed Richard Newhauser challenges the traditional view that avarice only became a dominant sin with the rise of a money economy. He shows that avaritia, the sin of greed for possessions, was dominant in a wide range of theological and literary texts from the first century CE, and that by the early Middle Ages avarice headed the list of vices for authors aiming to convert others from pagan materialism to Christian spirituality.

This wide-ranging study examines the role of the dream in medieval culture with reference to philosophical, legal and theological writings as well as literary and autobiographical works. Stephen Kruger studies the development of theories of dreaming, from the Neoplatonic and patristic writers to late medieval re-interpretations, and shows how these theories relate to autobiographical accounts and to more popular treatments of dreaming. He considers previously neglected material including one important dream vision by Nicole Oresme, and arrives at a new understanding of this literary genre,...

Chaucer's Legend of Good Women is a testament to the disparate views of women prevalent in the Middle Ages. Dr. Percival contends that the complex medieval notion of Woman informs the structure of the poem: in the Prologue Chaucer praises conventional ideas of female virtue, while in the Legends he demonstrates a humorous skepticism, apparently influenced by a contemporary antifeminist tradition. This is a comprehensive account of the Legend's interpretative puzzles, which does not ignore the element of political writing and adds to a close and nuanced reading of the text an examination of...

'Tragedy' has been understood in a variety of conflicting ways over the centuries, and the term has been applied to a wide range of literary works. In this book, H. A. Kelly explores the various meanings given to tragedy, from Aristotle's most basic notion (any serious story, even with a happy ending), via Roman ideas and practices, to the middle ages, when Averroes considered tragedy to be the praise of virtue but Albert the Great thought of it as the recitation of the foul deeds of degenerate men. Professor Kelly demonstrates the importance of finding out what writers like Horace, Ovid,...

In this study, Steven Botterill explores the intellectual relationship between the greatest poet of the fourteenth century, Dante, and the greatest spiritual writer of the twelfth century, Bernard of Clairvaux. Botterill analyzes Bernard's appearance as a character in the closing cantos of the Paradiso in the context of his medieval reputation as a contemplative mystic, devotee of Mary, and, above all, a preacher of outstanding eloquence. Botterill's new critical stance will provoke a reevaluation of Bernard's significance in the Commedia.