Absent narratives, manuscript textuality, and literary structure in late medieval England / Elizabeth Scala.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Scala, Elizabeth, 1966-

Series:

New Middle Ages (Palgrave (Firm))

The new Middle Ages

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Chaucer, Geoffrey, -1400.

English literature--Middle English, 1100-1500--History and criticism.

English literature.

Narration (Rhetoric).

English literature--Middle English, 1100-1500--Criticism, Textual.

Criticism, Textual.

Chaucer, Geoffrey, -1400--Technique.

Chaucer, Geoffrey.

Manuscripts, Medieval--England.

Manuscripts, Medieval.

Technique.

England.

Rhetoric, Medieval.

Physical Description:

xix, 284 pages ; 22 cm.

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Palgrave/Macmillan, 2002.

Summary:

"Absent Narratives, Manuscript Textuality, and Literary Structure in Late Medieval England" is a book about the defining difference between medieval and modern stories. In chapters devoted to the major writers of the late medieval period--Chaucer, Gower, the "Gawain"-poet and Malory--it presents and then analyzes a set of unique and unnoticed phenomena in medieval narrative, namely the persistent appearance of missing stories: stories implied, alluded to, or fragmented by a larger narrative. Far from being trivial digressions or passing curiosities, these "absent narratives" prove central to the way these medieval works function and to why they have affected readers in particular ways. Traditionally unseen, ignored, or explained away by critics, absent narratives offer a valuable new strategy for reading medieval texts and the historically specific textual culture in which they were written.

Contents:

Introduction: Absent narratives and the textual culture of the late Middle Ages

The wanting words of Sir Gawain and the green knight

Remembering Canacee, forgetting incest: reading the "Squire's tale"

Chaucer's family romance: the "Knight's tale" as primal scene

"Hic quasi in persona aliorum": the lover's repression and Gower's Confessio amantis

The death of the Arthur

Conclusion: The agency of Medieval narrative.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [255]-275) and index.

ISBN:

0312240430

OCLC:

48942962