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The Bible in Middle English Literature (Hardcover)
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The Bible in Middle English Literature (Hardcover)
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In this companion to his previous book, The Bible in Early English
Literature, David Fowler completes his stimulating and
broad-ranging study of medieval English literature in the light of
biblical tradition. As in the first volume, he both provides a
broad general view of literary trends and closely examines
representative works that illustrate these trends. The author
begins by discussing medieval drama in England--with special
attention to the Cornish drama-- as revealed in the cycle plays
that enacted the entire history of the world from Creation to
Doomsday. He demonstrates how the drama grew out of the liturgy of
the Church and developed into a parallel fashion with other kinds
of vernacular literature in the later Middle Ages, and he offers a
possible explanation of the origin of the morality play in England.
This is followed by an examination of representative shorter
medieval lyrics. Fowler shows that many of these lyrics were
composed to memorialize particular "secular' and "religious"
elements blended subtly and distinctively in Middle English lyrics,
often with a complete harmony of sacred and sexual significance. A
special section deals with Mary Magdalene in popular tradition,
comparing her description in the Bible with her treatment in
legend, drama, lyric poetry, and the ballad. The final three
chapters focus on particular literary works which the author
believes to be outstanding examples of poems composed in the
biblical tradition. "The Parliament of Fowls" is selected as the
best example of biblical influence in all of Chaucer. The work is
seen as a Creation poem with its organizing principles derives from
commentaries on the first chapter of Genesis--a new theory of the
poem's structure which the author feels resolves many of the
difficulties previously encountered by scholars. Fowler than treats
several works of the "Pearl" poet--"Cleanness," "Patience," "Saint
Erkenwald," and the "Pearl"--in their particular blend of humor,
seriousness, and Christian serenity. In stark contrast, "Piers the
Plowman," the final work dealt with, reflects the agony of the
turmoil of late fourteenth-century England. The emphasis is on the
historical significance of the poem: the importance of the A text
as an ideological influence on the leadership of the Peasants'
Revolt in 1381, and the exschatological implications of the later
versions (B and C texts). "It is my hope," the author states, "that
future studies of 'Piers' will increasingly take history into
account and likewise study the versions of the poem separately.
Until we learn to walk from this text out into history, we run the
risk of missing the important message that this profound and
troubling poem offers to twentieth-century man." This book will be
of value both to scholars and students of medieval literature and
religion and to general readers interested in the varied and
intriguing ways that the Bible has influence vernacular literature.
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