The art of allusion : illuminators and the making of English literature, 1403-1476 / Sonja Drimmer.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Drimmer, Sonja, author.

Series:

Material texts

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval--England.

Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval.

Illumination of books and manuscripts, English.

England.

Illumination of books and manuscripts, English--15th century.

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

English literature.

English literature--Middle English.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

324 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 27 cm.

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2019]

Summary:

At the end of the fourteenth and into the first half of the fifteenth century Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower, and John Lydgate translated and revised stories with long pedigrees in Latin, Italian, and French. Royals and gentry alike commissioned lavish manuscript copies of these works, copies whose images were integral to the rising prestige of English as a literary language. Yet despite the significance of these images, manuscript illuminators are seldom discussed in the major narratives of the development of English literary culture.0The newly enlarged scale of English manuscript production generated a problem: namely, a need for new images. Not only did these images need to accompany narratives that often had no tradition of illustration, they also had to express novel concepts, including ones as foundational as the identity and suitable representation of an English poet. In devising this new corpus, manuscript artists harnessed visual allusion as a method to articulate central questions and provide at times conflicting answers regarding both literary and cultural authority.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 231-309) and index.

ISBN:

9780812250497

0812250494

OCLC:

1028584113