Sign-In
Cart
Knowing Poetry: Verse in Medieval France from the Rose to the Rhétoriqueurs
Hardcover
ISBN13: 9780801449734
Publisher: Cornell Univ Pr
Published: May 15 2011
Pages: 264
Weight: 1.15
Height: 1.10 Width: 6.20 Depth: 9.30
Language: English
In the later Middle Ages, many writers claimed that prose is superior to verse as a vehicle of knowledge because it presents the truth in an unvarnished form, without the distortions of meter and rhyme. Beginning in the thirteenth century, works of verse narrative from the early Middle Ages were recast in prose, as if prose had become the literary norm. Instead of dying out, however, verse took on new vitality. In France verse texts were produced, in both French and Occitan, with the explicit intention of transmitting encyclopedic, political, philosophical, moral, historical, and other forms of knowledge.
In Knowing Poetry, Adrian Armstrong and Sarah Kay explore why and how verse continued to be used to transmit and shape knowledge in France. They cover the period between Jean de Meun's Roman de la rose (c. 1270) and the major work of Jean Bouchet, the last of the grands rhétoriqueurs (c. 1530). The authors find that the advent of prose led to a new relationship between poetry and knowledge in which poetry serves as a medium for serious reflection and self-reflection on subjectivity, embodiment, and time. They propose that three major works--the Roman de la rose, the Ovide moralisé, and Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy--form a single influential matrix linking poetry and intellectual inquiry, metaphysical insights, and eroticized knowledge. The trio of thought-world-contingency, poetically represented by Philosophy, Nature, and Fortune, grounds poetic exploration of reality, poetry, and community.
Also in
General Poetry
Dante's Vita Nuova, New Edition: A Translation and an Essay
Pitavy, Francois
Alighieri, Dante
Paperback
Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse (by the Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature)
Carson, Anne
Paperback
The Beauty of the Husband: A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos (by the Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature)
Carson, Anne
Paperback
Decreation: Poetry, Essays, Opera (by the Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature)
Carson, Anne
Paperback
Sounding the Seasons Enlarged Edition: One Hundred and Ten Sonnets for the Christian Year
Guite, Malcolm
Paperback
Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching: A Book about the Way and the Power of the Way
Lao Tzu
Le Guin, Ursula K.
Paperback
A Bowl of Goodness: Nourishing Poems with a Side of Soup, Celebrating Community, Friendship, and Resilience
Jackson, Major
Hardcover
Ariel: The Restored Edition: A Facsimile of Plath's Manuscript, Reinstating Her Original Selection and Arrangement
Plath, Sylvia
Paperback