Notice bibliographique
- Notice
Type(s) de contenu et mode(s) de consultation : Texte noté. Image fixe : sans médiation
Auteur(s) : Davis, Rebecca Ann (1977-....)
Titre(s) : "Piers Plowman" and the books of nature [Texte imprimé] / Rebecca Davis
Édition : First edition
Publication : Oxford (GB) : Oxford university press, 2016
Description matérielle : 1 vol. (XIV-272 p.) : ill. ; 23 cm
Note(s) : Includes bibliographical references (pages 245-265) and index
"Piers Plowman and the books of nature' explores the relationship of divine creativity,
poetry, and ethics in William Langland's fourteenth-century dream vision. These concerns
converge in the poem's rich vocabulary of kynde, the familiar Middle English word
for nature, broadly construed. But in a remarkable coinage, Langland also uses kynde
to name nature's creator, who appears as a character in 'Piers Plowman'. The stakes
of this representation could not be greater: by depicting God as Kynde, that is, under
the guise of creation itself, Langland explores the capacity of nature and of language
to bear the plenitude of the divine. In doing so, he advances a daring claim for the
spiritual value of literary art, including his own searching form of theological poetry.
This claim challenges recent critical attention to the poem's discourses of disability
and failure and reveals the poem's place in a long and diverse tradition of medieval
humanism that originates in the twelfth century and, indeed, points forward to celebrations
of nature and natural capacity in later periods. By contextualizing Langland's poetics
of kynde within contemporary literary, philosophical, legal, and theological discourses,
Rebecca Davis offers a new literary history for 'Piers Plowman' that opens up many
of the poem's most perplexing interpretative problems"--Back cover
Sujet(s) : Langland, William (1325?-1390?). Piers plowman -- Thèmes, motifs
Nature -- Dans la littérature
Identifiants, prix et caractéristiques : ISBN 9780198778400. - ISBN 0198778406 (rel.)
Identifiant de la notice : ark:/12148/cb45400703t
Notice n° :
FRBNF45400703
(notice reprise d'un réservoir extérieur)
Table des matières : List of illustrations -- ; Introduction: the craft of Kynde. ; Kynde capacity -- ;
The book of nature and the Goddess Natura -- ; Divine names -- ; Troping Kynde: the
samaritan as poet -- ; Kynde in theory and practice -- ; From cosmos to microcosm:
nature, allegory, humanism. ; Nature and divinity -- ; Writing the cosmos: Bernard
Silvestris's Cosmographia -- ; Nature and morality: Alan's two allegories -- ; Nature's
descent: vernacularity, Jean de Meun, and sexuality -- ; Nature's quarrel with grace:
Deguileville's Pèlerinage de la vie humaine -- ; "Right as Aleyn"? Nature in The parliament
of fowls -- ; "Fader and formour": Langland's creator Kynde. ; Handling creation --
; Wit's "lettres" and trinitarian expression -- ; Christ as "Mene" -- ; Kynde, natura
naturans, and Robert Grosseteste's Château d'amour -- ; Divine fullness and the "deeþ
of Kynde" -- ; "Diuerse sightes": encyclopedism and interpretation in Piers Plowman.
; The Medieval sciences of nature -- ; Fortune's mirror: nature and self-knowledge
-- ; Exemplarism and its limits -- ; Langland's beasts and the human anomaly -- ;
The lessons of the peacock -- ; Anima's names and encyclopedic capacity -- ; Seeing
oneself in nature -- ; Beyond measure: Langland's law of Kynde. ; Definitions of natural
law -- ; "Loue hem and lakke hem noght": the lessons of hunger and need -- ; The golden
rule -- ; Trajan's salvation and the equitable jurisdiction -- ; "Fullynge" Kynde:
nature, salvation, and human action in Piers plowman. ; Universalism and conversion.
; "Liflode ynogh": nature's plenty and sharing faith -- ; The role of the clergy --
; Epilogue: Kynde courtesy -- ; Bibliography -- ; Index.
