Animating the letter : the figurative embodiment of writing from late antiquity to the Renaissance / Laura Kendrick.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kendrick, Laura.

Contributor:

Horace Howard Furness Memorial Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Initials.

Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval.

Physical Description:

ix, 326 pages, 8 pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Columbus : Ohio State University Press, [1999]

Summary:

In oral cultures, Kendrick (Universite de Versailles) points out, it is the living body in action, in the act of remembering that commands respect. In order for writing to usurp cultural authority from oral speech, she argues, writers in the Middle Ages had to animate the letters into the same degree of movement and grace. Thus scribes created animal and human bodies turning into or emerging into letters their limbs, eyes, ears, and tongues twisting and elongating themselves around the letters. Among the many illustrations are eight color plates.

Contents:

Introduction: The Being Of The Letter/L'etre De La Lettre I

1 Writing As Relic: The Mythologizing of Alphabetic Writing as Bodily Trace II

2 Writing Versus Image In Christian Thought: Writing as Image in Christian Practice 36

3 Animistic Exegeses: Christ's Incarnation in Holy Scripture and the Figures of the Letter 65

4 Sacred Letters: As Dangerous Letters And Reading As Struggle 110

5 Enigma And Authority: Early Medieval Gospels 147

6 Archaeology Of The: Author Function 176

Conclusion: The Letter In Renaissance Perspective 207

Appendix The Jesting Borders of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and of Late Medieval Manuscript Art 217.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 291-309) and indexes.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Horace Howard Furness Memorial Fund.

ISBN:

0814208223

OCLC:

40723791