Piers Plowman and the books of nature / Rebecca Davis.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Davis, Rebecca Ann, 1977- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Langland, William, 1330?-1400? Piers Plowman.

Langland, William.

Piers Plowman (Langland, William).

Nature in literarure.

Physical Description:

1 online resource : illustrations (black and white)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2016.

Summary:

Rebecca Davis explores the relationship of divine creativity, poetry, and ethics in William Langland's fourteenth-century dream vision. By contextualizing Langland's poetics of kynde (or nature) within contemporary literary, philosophical, legal, and theological discourses, she opens up many of the poem's most perplexing interpretative problems.

Contents:

List of illustrations

Introduction: the craft of Kynde. Kynde capacity - The book of nature and the Goddess Natura - Divine names - Troping Kynde: the samaritan as poet - Kynde in theory and practice

From cosmos to microcosm: nature, allegory, humanism. Nature and divinity - Writing the cosmos: Bernard Silvestris's Cosmographia - Nature and morality: Alan's two allegories - Nature's descent: vernacularity, Jean de Meun, and sexuality - Nature's quarrel with grace: Deguileville's Pèlerinage de la vie humaine - "Right as Aleyn"? Nature in The parliament of fowls

"Fader and formour": Langland's creator Kynde. Handling creation - Wit's "lettres" and trinitarian expression - Christ as "Mene" - Kynde, natura naturans, and Robert Grosseteste's Château d'amour - Divine fullness and the "deeþ of Kynde"

"Diuerse sightes": encyclopedism and interpretation in Piers Plowman. The Medieval sciences of nature - Fortune's mirror: nature and self-knowledge - Exemplarism and its limits - Langland's beasts and the human anomaly - The lessons of the peacock - Anima's names and encyclopedic capacity - Seeing oneself in nature

Beyond measure: Langland's law of Kynde. Definitions of natural law - "Loue hem and lakke hem noght": the lessons of hunger and need - The golden rule - Trajan's salvation and the equitable jurisdiction

"Fullynge" Kynde: nature, salvation, and human action in Piers plowman. Universalism and conversion. "Liflode ynogh": nature's plenty and sharing faith - The role of the clergy

Epilogue: Kynde courtesy

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

This edition previously issued in print: 2016.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from home page (viewed on September 5, 2016).

ISBN:

9780191084270

0-19-108428-X

0-19-182383-X