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Originally published in 1994, Oral Tradition in Middle English is an edited collection providing a multidisciplinary look at the importance and nature of oral tradition in Middle English literature. The book offers a discussion of the gradual problemization of orality and literacy in works of verbal art from this period. It shows how early typographies proved too exclusive to explain the heterogeneity of relevant texts, bringing to bear the new and potentially productive concepts of "vocality" and developing literacy. This book establishes a new interpretive paradigm for Middle English poetry.
List of contents
Introduction: Oral Poetics in Post-Conquest England Introduction to the Individual Contributions 1. Literacy, Orality, and the Poetics of Middle English 2. Oral Tradition in the Middle English Romance: The Case of Robert of Cisyle 3. Tradition and Heroism in the Middle English Romances 4. The Devil’s Writing Lesson 5. Dorigen’s Promise and Scholars’ Premise: The Orality of the Speech Act in The Franklin’s Tale 6. Oral Tradition and the Canterbury Tales 7. "Now Holde Youre Mouthe". The Romance of Orality in the Thopas-Melibee Section of the Canterbury Tales 8. Wyrchipe: The Clash of Oral-Heroic and Literate-Ricardan Ideals in the Alliterative Morte Arthure 9. The Alliterative Morte Arthure As a Witness to Epic Contributors
About the author
Mark C. Amodio
Summary
Originally published in 1994, Oral Tradition in Middle English is an edited collection providing a multidisciplinary look at the importance and nature of oral tradition in Middle English literature.
