Translations of authority in medieval English literature : valuing the vernacular / Alastair Minnis.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 242-265) and index.

Absent glosses : the trouble with middle English hermeneutics -- Looking for a sign : the quest for Nominalism in Ricardian poetry -- Piers's protean pardon : Langland on the letter and spirit of indulgences -- Making bodies : confection and conception in Walter Brut's vernacular theology -- Spiritualizing marriage : Margery Kempe's allegories of female authority -- Chaucer and the relics of vernacular religion.

Print version record.

"In Translations of Authority in Medieval English Literature, leading critic Alastair Minnis presents the fruits of a long-term engagement with the ways in which crucial ideological issues were deployed in vernacular texts. The concept of the vernacular is seen as possessing a value far beyond the category of language - as encompassing popular beliefs and practices which could either confirm or contest those authorized by church and state institutions. Minnis addresses the crisis for vernacular translation precipitated by the Lollard heresy; the minimal engagement with Nominalism in late fourteenth-century poetry; Langland's views on indulgences; the heretical theology of Walter Brut; Margery Kempe's self-promoting biblical exegesis; and Chaucer's tales of suspicious saints and risible relics. These discussions disclose different aspects of 'vernacularity', enabling a fuller understanding of its complexity and potency."--Jacket.

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