Experience of Beauty in the Middle Ages

This book articulates a new approach to medieval aesthetic values, emphasizing the sensory and emotional basis of all medieval arts, their love of play and fine craftsmanship, of puzzles, and of strong contrasts.It offers an understanding of medieval literature and art that is rooted in the perceptions and feelings of ordinary life.

About the author

Mary Carruthers studies memory training and rhetorical practices of the Middle Ages, in universities and monasteries, clerical and court cultures, focussing in particular on compositional and performative practice in the arts of the twelfth through the mid-fifteenth centuries in Europe. Her work has been fruitful to scholars in a number of other disciplines besides literature, including cultural history, comparative religion, the history of psychology and education, art and architecture history, and musicology. She received her BA from Wellesley College and her PhD from Yale University, both in English language and literature, though her work now is mainly with Latin materials. She retired from New York University in 2011. In Oxford she has been George Eastman Visiting Professor and Fellow of All Souls College. She is a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy and a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America.

Summary

This book articulates a new approach to medieval aesthetic values, emphasizing the sensory and emotional basis of all medieval arts, their love of play and fine craftsmanship, of puzzles, and of strong contrasts.It offers an understanding of medieval literature and art that is rooted in the perceptions and feelings of ordinary life.

Additional text

Mary Carruthers is well-known to medievalists across the disciplines for her pioneering work on the art of memory, which has transformed the way in which we think about medieval processes of learning. . . This is not a book to be read in a single sitting. Readers will want to savor the essays, chew them over in order to release their flavor.

Product details

• Authors: Mary Carruthers, Mary (Remarque Professor of Literature Carruthers, Mary (Remarque Professor of Literature (Emeritus) Carruthers, Carruthers Mary
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 25.09.2014
• EAN: 9780198723257
• ISBN: 978-0-19-872325-7
• No. of pages: 246
• Series: Oxford-Warburg Studies; Oxford-Warburg Studies
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Art > Art history; Kunstgeschichte, Mittelalterlicher Stil, 1000 bis 1500 nach Christus, Geschichte allgemein und Weltgeschichte, HISTORY / World, PHILOSOPHY / Aesthetics, General & world history, Medieval History, History of Art, History of art: Byzantine & Medieval art c 500 CE to c 1400, c 1000 CE to c 1500, Philosophy: aesthetics, 17th century, c 1600 to c 1699, Literary studies: general, General and world history, c 500 to c 1000 CE, 16th century, c 1500 to c 1599, Literary studies: ancient, classical and medieval, Medieval style, ART / History / European / Medieval