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The function of images in the major illustrated English poetic
works from the Anglo-Saxon period to the early fifteenth century is
the primary concern of this book. Hilmo argues that the
illustrations have not been sufficiently understood because modern
judgments about their artistic merit and fidelity to the literary
texts have got in the way of a historical understanding of their
function. The author here proves that artists took their work
seriously because images represented an invisible order of reality,
that they were familiar with the vernacular poems, and that they
were innovative in adapting existing iconographies to guide the
ethical reading process of their audience. To provide a theoretical
basis for the understanding of early monuments, artefacts, and
texts, she examines patristic opinions on image-making, supported
by the most authoritative modern sources. Fresh emphasis is given
to the iconic nature of medieval images from the time of the
iconoclastic debates of the 8th and 9th centuries to the renewed
anxiety of image-making at the time of the Lollard attacks on
images. She offers an important revision of the reading of the
Ruthwell Cross, which changes radically the interpretation of the
Cross as a whole. Among the manuscripts examined here are the
Caedmon, Auchinleck, Vernon, and Pearl manuscripts. Hilmo's thesis
is not confined to overtly religious texts and images, but deals
also with historical writing, such as Layamon's Brut, and with
poetry designed ostensibly for entertainment, such as the
Canterbury Tales. This study convincingly demonstrates how the
visual and the verbal interactively manifest the real "text" of
each illustrated literary work. The artistic elements place
vernacular works within a larger iconographic framework in which
human composition is seen to relate to the activities of the divine
Author and Artificer.Whether iconic or anti-iconic in stance,
images, by their nature, were a potent means of influencing the way
an English author's words, accessible in the vernacular, were
thought about and understood within the context of the theology of
the Incarnation that informed them and governed their aesthetic of
spiritual function. This is the first study to cover the range of
illustrated English poems from the Anglo-Saxon period to the early
15th century.
The function of images in the major illustrated English poetic
works from the Anglo-Saxon period to the early fifteenth century is
the primary concern of this book. Hilmo argues that the
illustrations have not been sufficiently understood because modern
judgments about their artistic merit and fidelity to the literary
texts have got in the way of a historical understanding of their
function. The author here proves that artists took their work
seriously because images represented an invisible order of reality,
that they were familiar with the vernacular poems, and that they
were innovative in adapting existing iconographies to guide the
ethical reading process of their audience. To provide a theoretical
basis for the understanding of early monuments, artefacts, and
texts, she examines patristic opinions on image-making, supported
by the most authoritative modern sources. Fresh emphasis is given
to the iconic nature of medieval images from the time of the
iconoclastic debates of the 8th and 9th centuries to the renewed
anxiety of image-making at the time of the Lollard attacks on
images. She offers an important revision of the reading of the
Ruthwell Cross, which changes radically the interpretation of the
Cross as a whole. Among the manuscripts examined here are the
Caedmon, Auchinleck, Vernon, and Pearl manuscripts. Hilmo's thesis
is not confined to overtly religious texts and images, but deals
also with historical writing, such as Layamon's Brut, and with
poetry designed ostensibly for entertainment, such as the
Canterbury Tales. This study convincingly demonstrates how the
visual and the verbal interactively manifest the real "text" of
each illustrated literary work. The artistic elements place
vernacular works within a larger iconographic framework in which
human composition is seen to relate to the activities of the divine
Author and Artificer.Whether iconic or anti-iconic in stance,
images, by their nature, were a potent means of influencing the way
an English author's words, accessible in the vernacular, were
thought about and understood within the context of the theology of
the Incarnation that informed them and governed their aesthetic of
spiritual function. This is the first study to cover the range of
illustrated English poems from the Anglo-Saxon period to the early
15th century.
This deeply informed and lavishly illustrated book is a
comprehensive introduction to the modern study of Middle English
manuscripts. It is intended for students and scholars who are
familiar with some of the major Middle English literary works, such
as The Canterbury Tales, Gawain and the Green Knight, Piers
Plowman, and the romances, mystical works or cycle plays, but who
may not know much about the surviving manuscripts. The book
approaches these texts in a way that takes into account the whole
manuscript or codex its textual and visual contents, physical
state, readership, and cultural history. Opening Up Middle English
Manuscripts also explores the function of illustrations in
fashioning audience response to particular authors and their texts
over the course of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries
Kathryn Kerby-Fulton, Linda Olson, and Maidie Hilmo scholars at
the forefront of the modern study of Middle English manuscripts
focus on the writers most often taught in Middle English courses,
including Geoffrey Chaucer, William Langland, the Gawain Poet,
Thomas Hoccleve, Julian of Norwich, and Margery Kempe, highlighting
the specific issues that shaped literary production in late
medieval England. Among the topics they address are the rise of the
English language, literacy, social conditions of authorship, early
instances of the "Alliterative Revival," women and book production,
nuns' libraries, patronage, household books, religious and
political trends, and attempts at revisionism and censorship.
Inspired by the highly successful study of Latin manuscripts by
Raymond Clemens and Timothy Graham, Introduction to Manuscript
Studies (also published by Cornell), this book demonstrates how the
field of Middle English manuscript studies, with its own unique
literary and artistic environment, is changing modern approaches to
the culture of the book."
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