Language and Piety in Middle English Romance by Roger Dalrymple - 2000-11-09

D. S. Brewer. Used - Very Good. 2000. Hardcover. Very Good.

D.S.Brewer, 2000-11-09. Hardcover. Good.

hardcover. Good. Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items. May be an ex-library book.

-D S Brewer, 2000-. First edition. x+270 pages with index. Cloth. Fine. No dustjacket required for this edition. Middle English romances exhibit a distinctive piety, and yet were maligned by medieval moralists. Dalrymple seeks an answer to this apparent contradiction by drawing attention to the genre's myriad invocations of God and Christ, its pious formulae. Criticism to date has tended to view prayers and vows to 'him that bore the crown of thorns' or to 'him that bought us with his blood' as stock line-fillers drawn upon for metrical ease. Yet, based upon a catalogue of the formulae, the book argues that in romances such as the Stanzaic Morte Arthur and Guy of Warwick they encode a rich and resonant fund of devotional imagery which when harnessed to aesthetic use provoke a strong affective charge, conflating piety and blasphemy. In analysing the changing functions of pious formulae across a range of romances, the author aims to illuminate their neglected stylistic role, and to broaden… Read More