Mastering Aesop: Medieval Education, Chaucer, and His Followers | 
 enlarge | Author: Edward Wheatley
Publisher: University Press of Florida
Category: Book
Buy New: $59.95
New (1) Used (4) from $29.53
Rating:  1 reviews
Sales Rank: 2337998
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.3 x 1
ISBN: 0813017459
Dewey Decimal Number: 820.9001
EAN: 9780813017457
ASIN: 0813017459
Publication Date: March 1, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
In this first study of a text from early childhood education that continued to exert its influence over major Middle English writers in their maturity, Edward Wheatley examines fable as a mode of discourse in its medieval curricular context and then discusses the ways in which it influenced the work of Chaucer, Lydgate, and Henryson. Drawing on exhaustive study of over 100 manuscripts and several incunables of the fables, Wheatley traces the use of the standard medieval Latin fable collection across Europe, the constructions of Aesop that affected that use, and the scholastic commentaries that the collection inspired. He then describes how the medieval understanding of Latin curricular fable exerted its influence on both the matter and the art of Chaucer and on his followers. Beyond his considerable contribution to the study of Latin influence on major vernacular writers of the English Middle Ages, Wheatley illuminates the curricular tradition in which they were trained and affords insights into numerous problematical issues at the heart of medieval literary study, such as the theory of translation and the nature of genre, author, and text.
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| Customer Reviews:
An important and innovatory study April 29, 2003
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is certain to become a much consulted and frequently cited work. Wheatley's study of the manuscript tradition of the Latin Aesop of a twelfth-century poet known as "Walter of England," or (better) as the "Anonymus Neveleti," leads him to a number of important new insights into the use of the genre in later medieval vernacular English and Scots literature. The analysis offered here of Chaucer's Nun's Priest's Tale is destined to be a classic, providing richly suggestive readings of elements hitherto thought merely arbitrary or idiosyncratic. Less interesting, if still competent, are Wheatley's discussions of Lydgate and Henryson. Even those benighted scholars in fields other than English will find much inspiration here, and any literary historian who has not read this book should hasten to make good the omission.
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