{"product_id":"9781442651395","title":"The Ethical Poetic of the Later Middle Ages: A decorum of convenient distinction","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis study of the definition of literature in the late medieval period is based on manuals of writing and on literary commentary and glosses. It defines a method of reading which may now profitably explain medieval texts, and identifies new primary medieval evidence which may ground and guide new reading.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAllen chooses texts whose commentary tradition provides the greatest opportunity for completeness. The most important of these is Ovid’s\u003cem\u003e Metamorphoses\u003c\/em\u003e. Medieval readings of Ovid bring into focus a number of major literary questions—the problems of fable and fiction, of unity imposed by miscellany poetry, of allegorical commentary, and of Christian use of pagan culture—all in connection with text which furnished medieval authors with more stories than any other single source except possibly the Bible. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAllen also studies commentaries on the\u003cem\u003e Consolation of Philosophy\u003c\/em\u003e of Boethius, the \u003cem\u003eThebaid\u003c\/em\u003e of Statius, the \u003cem\u003eDe nuptiis\u003c\/em\u003e of Martianus Capella, the medieval Christian hymn-book, and the \u003cem\u003ePoetria nova\u003c\/em\u003e of Geoffrey of Vinsauf.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTogether these texts represent the range of medieval literature—a literature which, Allen concludes, was taken as direct ethical discourse, logically conducted and artfully organized within a system of language that also assimilated the natural world and sought to absorb its audience.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47030695264496,"sku":"9781442651395","price":34.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781442651395_p0.jpg?v=1763811609","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781442651395","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}