Oxford Handbook of Medieval Latin Literature (Oxford Handbooks)

Description

The twenty-eight essays in this handbook represent the best current thinking in the study of Latin language and literature in the Middle Ages. Contributing authors--both senior scholars and gifted younger thinkers among them--not only illuminate the field as traditionally defined but also offer fresh insights into broader questions of literary history, cultural interaction, world literature, and language in history and society. Their studies vividly illustrate the field's complexities on a wide range of topics, including canonicity, literary styles and genres, and the materiality of manuscript culture. At the same time, they suggest future possibilities for the necessarily provisional and open-ended work essential to the pursuit of medieval Latin studies. The overall approach of The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Latin Literature makes this volume an essential resource for students of the ancient world interested in the prolonged after-life of the classical period's cultural complexes, for medieval historians, for scholars of other medieval literary traditions, and for all those interested in delving more deeply into the fascinating more-than-millennium-long passage between the ancient Mediterranean world and what we consider modernity. Contributors Preface Abbreviations Framing the Field: Problematics and Provocations The Current Questions and Future Prospects of Medieval Latin Studies Canonicity Latinity as Cultural Capital Latin as an Acquired Language Latin as a Language of Authoritative Tradition The Cultures and Dynamics of Translation into Medieval Latin Regional Variation: The Case of Scandinavian Latin The Idea of Latinity Manuscript Culture and the Materiality of Latin Texts Readers and Manuscripts Gloss and Commentary Location, Location, Location: Geography, Knowledge, and the Creation of Medieval Latin Textual Communities Styles and Genre Prose Style Verse Style Crossing Generic Boundaries Textual Fluidity and the Interaction of Latin and the Vernacular Languages Systems of Knowledge Martianus Capella and the Liberal Arts Learned Mythography: Plato and Martianus Capella Biblical Thematics: The Story of Samson in Medieval Literary Discourse The Language, Form, and Performance of Monophonic Liturgical Chants Medieval Latin and the Fashioning of the Self Regimens of Schooling Gender Sex and Sexuality Medieval Latin Spirituality: Seeking Divine Presence Modes of Self-Writing from Antiquity to the Later Middle Ages Periodizations Late Antiquity, New Departures Renaissances and Revivals Humanism and Continuities in the Transition to the Early Modern Medieval Latin Texts in the Age of Printing Medieval Latin in Modern English: Translations from the Nineteenth Century to the Present Day Chronology of Medieval Authors Index of Personal Names and Titles Index of Selected Topics and Places