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OverviewRomance and the Gentry in Late Medieval England offers a new history of Middle English romance, the most popular genre of secular literature in the English Middle Ages. Michael Johnston argues that many of the romances composed in England from 1350-1500 arose in response to the specific socio-economic concerns of the gentry, the class of English landowners who lacked titles of nobility and hence occupied the lower rungs of the aristocracy. The end of the fourteenth century in England witnessed power devolving to the gentry, who became one of the dominant political and economic forces in provincial society. As Johnston demonstrates, this social change also affected England's literary culture, particularly the composition and readership of romance. Romance and the Gentry in Late Medieval England identifies a series of new topoi in Middle English that responded to the gentry's economic interests. But beyond social history and literary criticism, it also speaks to manuscript studies, showing that most of the codices of the ""gentry romances"" were produced by those in the immediate employ of the gentry. By bringing together literary criticism and manuscript studies, this book speaks to two scholarly communities often insulated from one another: it invites manuscript scholars to pay closer attention to the cultural resonances of the texts within medieval codices; simultaneously, it encourages literary scholars to be more attentive to the cultural resonances of surviving medieval codices. Full Product DetailsAuthor: Michael Johnston (Assistant Professor of English, Assistant Professor of English, Purdue University)Publisher: Oxford University Press Imprint: Oxford University Press Dimensions: Width: 14.70cm , Height: 2.50cm , Length: 22.20cm Weight: 0.522kg ISBN: 9780199679782ISBN 10: 0199679789 Pages: 318 Publication Date: 19 June 2014 Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Tertiary & Higher Education , Professional & Vocational Format: Hardback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: To order  Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us. Table of Contents"Introduction 1: ""A watered-down version of nobility"": The Growth of the Gentry in Late Medieval England 2: Gentry Romances: A Literary History 3: Gentry Romances: The Manuscript Evidence 4: Derbyshire Landowners Read Romance 5: Robert Thornton Reads Romance 6: The Irelands Read Romance Appendix: The Composition and Circulation of Gentry Romances"ReviewsThe combination of socio-cultural, literary and bibliographical analysis here is deftly handled; Michael Johnson has produced an informed and mostly persuasive experiment in exploring books and their readers Julia Boffey, The Times Literary Supplement The book is beautifully written, balancing a wealth of detailed information with a sense of broader themes... but what struck me was Johnstons ability to make a familiar text seem fresh and innovative, and this continued through the book. Lucy Allen, University of Cambridge. The combination of socio-cultural, literary and bibliographical analysis here is deftly handled; Michael Johnson has produced an informed and mostly persuasive experiment in exploring books and their readers Julia Boffey, The Times Literary Supplement Author InformationMichael Johnston is an Assistant Professor of English at Purdue University (West Lafayette, Ind., USA). He specializes in the history of the book, particularly the manuscript culture of fifteenth-century England. His work on this topic has recently appeared in the Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Journal of the Early Book Society, Viator, and Yearbook of Langland Studies. He regularly offers courses on British literature and culture, primarily of the Middle Ages, as well as courses on the history of books. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |
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