Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Images of Language in Middle English Vernacular Writings

Images of Language in Middle English Vernacular Writings

Cawsey, Kathy

Hardcover

Literary CriticismGeneral ReferenceFiction Anthologies

ISBN10: 1843845725
ISBN13: 9781843845720
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Inc
Published: Oct 16 2020
Pages: 222
Weight: 1.08
Height: 0.56 Width: 6.14 Depth: 9.21
Language: English
An exploration of the use of images in Middle English texts, tracing out what can be deduced of a theory of language.

In the Middle Ages, English did not have any explicit theory or philosophy of language: philosophers wrote in Latin. This book addresses the issue. By closely analysing the images and metaphors used to describe language in MiddleEnglish texts, it explores how English writers thought language works. These images are reverse-engineered in an attempt to deduce what underlying theory of language could have created that image. In this way, it is possible togo beyond the clerically-educated Latin thinkers of the medieval period and try to find out what people thought in English. Taking metaphors and images from the poetry of Geoffrey Chaucer, Arthurian romances, bird debates, sermons, handbooks of exempla, and medieval dramas, the book provides new and sometimes surprising readings of such familiar texts as the House of Fame and the Morte Darthur.

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