Authorising history : gestures of authorship in fourteenth-century English historiography / by Nicole Nyffenegger.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Nyffenegger, Nicole, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Historical poetry, English--History and criticism.

Historical poetry, English.

Historical poetry, English--Authorship.

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

English literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (230 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Other Title:

Authorising history : gestures of authorship in 14th-century English historiography

Place of Publication:

Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom : Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

""This book discusses the strategies and rhetorical means by which four authors of Middle English verse historiography seek to authorise their works and themselves. Paying careful attention to the texts, it traces the ways in which authors inscribe their fictional selves and seek to give authority to their constructions of history. It further investigates how the authors position themselves in relation to their task of writing history, their sources and their audiences. This study provides new...

Contents:

TABLE OF CONTENTS; PREFACE; INTRODUCTION; The four works; Robert Mannyng of Brunne's chronicle; Robert of Gloucester's chronicle; The Northern and the Southern versions of the Cursor Mundi; CHAPTER ONE; The historiographer as mediator; The "unlearned" audience; The written text and aural prelection; Material metaphors for the writing of history; CHAPTER TWO; Time matters: past, present and the authorial persona; Space in time: "land" as epoch marker and motif; Conquerors, kings, and the Virgin Mary; CHAPTER THREE; The power of the book to preserve the truth

Books as the exclusive domain of the literatusLetters of liberation; Robert Mannyng's emphasis on letters of liberation; CHAPTER FOUR; Robert Mannyng's evaluation of his sources; Appropriating the sources' authority; Eluding the control exerted by the authoritative sources; Criticising and challenging the sources; CHAPTER FIVE; Framing the text with the authorial persona; The functions of "here" and "now"; Mannyng's reaction to Wace's gestures of authorship; CONCLUSION; BIBLIOGRAPHY; INDEX

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (ebrary, viewed October 10, 2014).

ISBN:

1-4438-6841-8

OCLC:

892799116