Alastair Minnis's Books

Fallible Authors

Chaucer's Pardoner and Wife of Bath

By: Alastair Minnis

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Fallible Authors

Chaucer's Pardoner and Wife of Bath

By: Alastair Minnis

Can an outrageously immoral man or a scandalous woman teach morality or lead people to virtue? Does personal fallibility devalue one's words and deeds? Is it possible to separate the private from the public, to segregate individual failing from official function? Chaucer addressed these perennial issues through two problematic authority figures, the Pardoner and the Wife of Bath. The Pardoner dares to assume official roles to which he has no legal claim and for which he is quite unsuited. We are faced with the shocking consequences of the belief, standard for the time, that immorality is not necessarily a bar to effective ministry. Even more subversively, the Wife of Bath, who represents one of the most despised stereotypes in medieval literature, the sexually rapacious widow, dispenses wisdom of the highest order. This innovative book places these "fallible authors" within the full intellectual context that gave them meaning. Alastair Minnis magisterially examines the impact of Aristotelian thought on preaching theory, the controversial practice of granting indulgences, religious and medical categorizations of deviant bodies, theological attempts to rationalize sex within marriage, Wycliffite doctrine that made authority dependent on individual grace and raised the specter of Donatism, and heretical speculation concerning the possibility of female teachers. Chaucer's Pardoner and Wife of Bath are revealed as interconnected aspects of a single radical experiment wherein the relationship between objective authority and subjective fallibility is confronted as never before.

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Page Count

528

Publisher

University of Pennsylvania Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0812205715

ISBN 13

9780812205718

From Eden to Eternity

Creations of Paradise in the Later Middle Ages

By: Alastair Minnis

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From Eden to Eternity

Creations of Paradise in the Later Middle Ages

By: Alastair Minnis

Introduction : creating paradise -- ch. 1. The body in Eden. Creating bodies ; Bodily functions ; The pleasures of paradise ; Being fruitful and multiplying ; The children of Eden ; What Adam knew ; Creating souls ; Eden as human habitat -- ch. 2. Power in paradise. Dominion over the animals ; Domestic dominion : the origins of economics ; Power and gender ; Unequal men : the origins of politics ; Power and possession : the origins of ownership ; The insubordinate fall -- ch. 3. Death and the paradise beyond. The death of the animal ; The body returns ; Representing paradise : from Eden to the patria ; Perfecting children's bodies ; Rewarding inequality ; Negotiating the material ; Resurrecting the senses ; Somewhere over the rainbow -- Coda : between paradises.

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Page Count

368

Publisher

University of Pennsylvania Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

081224723X

ISBN 13

9780812247237

Translations of Authority in Medieval English Literature

Valuing the Vernacular

By: Alastair Minnis

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Translations of Authority in Medieval English Literature

Valuing the Vernacular

By: Alastair Minnis

Minnis presents the fruits of a long-term engagement with the ways in which crucial ideological issues were deployed in vernacular texts. He addresses the crisis for vernacular translation precipitated by the Lollard heresy, Langland's views on indulgences, Chaucer's tales of suspicious saints and risible relics, and more.

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291

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0521515947

ISBN 13

9780521515948

Historians on Chaucer

The 'General Prologue' to the Canterbury Tales

By: Alastair Minnis

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Historians on Chaucer

The 'General Prologue' to the Canterbury Tales

By: Alastair Minnis

As literary scholars have long insisted, an interdisciplinary approach is vital if modern readers are to make sense of works of medieval literature. In particular, rather than reading the works of medieval authors as addressing us across the centuries about some timeless or ahistorical 'human condition', critics from a wide range of theoretical approaches have in recent years shown how the work of poets such as Chaucer constituted engagements with the power relations and social inequalities of their time. Yet, perhaps surprisingly, medieval historians have played little part in this 'historical turn' in the study of medieval literature. The aim of this volume is to allow historians who are experts in the fields of economic, social, political, religious, and intellectual history the chance to interpret one of the most famous works of Middle English literature, Geoffrey Chaucer's 'General Prologue' to the Canterbury Tales, in its contemporary context. Rather than resorting to traditional historical attempts to see Chaucer's descriptions of the Canterbury pilgrims as immediate reflections of historical reality or as portraits of real life people whom Chaucer knew, the contributors to this volume have sought to show what interpretive frameworks were available to Chaucer in order to make sense of reality and how he adapted his literary and ideological inheritance so as to engage with the controversies and conflicts of his own day. Beginning with a survey of recent debates about the social meaning of Chaucer's work, the volume then discusses each of the Canterbury pilgrims in turn. Historians on Chaucer should be of interest to all scholars and students of medieval culture whether they are specialists in literature or history.

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525

Publisher

OUP Oxford

Published Date

ISBN 10

0191003689

ISBN 13

9780191003684

Phantom Pains and Prosthetic Narratives

From George Dedlow to Dante

By: Alastair Minnis

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Phantom Pains and Prosthetic Narratives

From George Dedlow to Dante

By: Alastair Minnis

Phantom limb pain' designates the sensations which seem to emanate from limbs that in reality are missing. The phrase was coined by the American Civil War surgeon, Weir Mitchell, in reference to his fictional amputee, George Dedlow. Contemporary neuroscience holds that the brain encloses a schema which covers the whole body, and asserts its unity even if certain parts are missing. Reading backwards from Dedlow's sufferings, Alastair Minnis traces the medieval precedents and parallels, focusing on Augustine and Dante, who subscribed to the notion of a 'body in the soul'. Dante's souls in purgatory self-prosthesize with aerial phantoms as they long for the full embodiment which only the resurrection can bring. Is a complete body necessary for personhood? And how can the gamut of human feelings be run if parts or the entirety of one's body does not exist? Combining medieval studies and contemporary neuroscience, this absorbing study explores the fascinating and surprising history of phantom pain.

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Page Count

131

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1108996205

ISBN 13

9781108996204

Chaucer and Pagan Antiquity

By: Alastair J. Minnis

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Chaucer and Pagan Antiquity

By: Alastair J. Minnis

Professor Minnis argues that the paganism in Troilus and Criseyde and The Knight's Taleis not simply a backdrop but must be central to our understanding of the texts. Chaucer's two great pagan poems, Troilus and Criseyde and The Knight's Tale, belong to the literary genre known as the `romance of antiquity' (which first appeard in the mid 12th century), in which the ancient pagan world is shown on its own terms, without the blatant Christian bias against paganism characteristic of works like the Chanson de Roland, where the writer is concerned with present-day rather than classical forms of paganism. Chaucer's attitudes to antiquity were influenced, but not determined, by those found in the compilations, commentaries, mythographies and history books which we know that he knew. These sources illuminate the manner in which he transformed Boccaccio. Much modern criticism has concentrated on the medieval veneer of manners and fashions which are ascribed to the heathen protagonists of Troilus and The Knight's Tale; Dr Minnis examines the other side of the coin, Chaucer's historical interest in cultures very different from his own. The paganism in these poems is not mere background and setting, but an essential part of their overall meaning.

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Page Count

214

Publisher

Boydell & Brewer Ltd

Published Date

ISBN 10

0859910989

ISBN 13

9780859910989

Preaching and Narrative in Piers Plowman

By: Alastair Bennett

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Preaching and Narrative in Piers Plowman

By: Alastair Bennett

William Langland's Piers Plowman was written and read during a “golden age” of English preaching. The poem describes a world where sermons took many different forms and were delivered in many different contexts, from public events in the life of the realm to pastoral instruction in the parish. It dramatises preaching as part of its allegorical action, showing how sermons shaped their listeners' understanding of the world; it also includes polemical critique of corrupt, self-interested preaching, and offers radical prescriptions for its reform. This book argues that Langland's central insight into the way that sermons moved and engaged their audiences had to do with their characteristic use of narrative. Preachers in the poem address listeners who are absorbed in the concerns of their present moment, and encourage them to new forms of social and spiritual endeavour by locating that moment in a larger, interpreted plot: the story of an individual life, or an emergent community, or of salvation history as a whole. The book employs a critical vocabulary derived from Paul Ricoeur to describe the process by which these narratives are composed, and to show how they mediate and reconfigure their listeners' experiences.

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Page Count

277

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0192886282

ISBN 13

9780192886286

Literary Names

Personal Names in English Literature

By: Alastair Fowler

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Literary Names

Personal Names in English Literature

By: Alastair Fowler

Why do authors use pseudonyms and pen-names, or ingeniously hide names in their work with acrostics and anagrams? How has the range of permissible given names changed and how is this reflected in literature? Why do some characters remain mysteriously nameless? In this rich and learned book, Alastair Fowler explores the use of names in literature of all periods - primarily English but also Latin, Greek, French, and Italian - casting an unusual and rewarding light on the work of literature itself. He traces the history of names through Homer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Thackeray, Dickens, Joyce, and Nabokov, showing how names often turn out to be the thematic focus. Fowler shows that the associations of names, at first limited, become increasingly salient and sophisticated as literature itself develops.

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Page Count

420

Publisher

OUP Oxford

Published Date

ISBN 10

0191650994

ISBN 13

9780191650994

The Kaiserchronik

A Medieval Narrative

By: Alastair Matthews

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The Kaiserchronik

A Medieval Narrative

By: Alastair Matthews

A narratological analysis of the Kaiserchronik, or chronicle of the emperors, which provides an account of the Roman and Holy Roman emperors, from the foundation of Rome to the eve of the Second Crusade.

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209

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0199656991

ISBN 13

9780199656998

Remembered Words

Essays on Genre, Realism, and Emblems

By: Alastair Fowler

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Remembered Words

Essays on Genre, Realism, and Emblems

By: Alastair Fowler

Remembered Words is a selection of Alastair Fowler's essays on genre, realism, and the emblem (three interrelated subjects), published over six decades. It offers readers a way to arrive at a sense of how approaches to these subjects have changed over that period. Specifically, it shows how genre has come to be understood in terms of family resemblance theory. Remembered Words argues that realism can be seen as altering historically, so that Renaissance realism, for example, differs from those of later periods. Similar changes are traced in the emblem, which Fowler shows to be not only a particular genre, but an element of various kinds of realism. Famous passages in ancient literature are remembered in the familiar emblems of the Renaissance; and Renaissance emblems form the basis of metaphors in later literature. Meanwhile, the general approach of the critic and the reader has been altering over the years—as becomes evident when one takes into account the time-scale of sixty years (an unusually long working life for a critic). Modern theoretical approaches—which are often casually regarded as self-evident—may appear less inevitable and more arbitrary. This is not to say that they are necessarily wrong, just that they need to be argued for. Remembered Words is intended for senior undergraduates and for graduate students, who may use it to form ideas of Fowler's approach and that of his contemporaries and predecessors over the last half century.

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328

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

019259902X

ISBN 13

9780192599025

Scotland and Beyond: The Families of Donald Gunn (Tormsdale) and John Gunn (Dalnaha, Strathmore and Braehour)

By: Donald Gunn,Alastair Gunn

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Scotland and Beyond: The Families of Donald Gunn (Tormsdale) and John Gunn (Dalnaha, Strathmore and Braehour)

By: Donald Gunn,Alastair Gunn

This book examines two linked Caithness Gunn families over many generations in places such as Scotland, Canada, Jamaica and Australia. It has many family trees, photographs and original documents including details of trips to Canada in the 1840s and Australia in the 1850s. Many letters from the mid 1800s are included. The book has many biographies including the Hon. Donald Gunn of Canada, William Gunn of Waranga Park, Sir John Gunn of Tormsdale and the Hon. John Alexander Gunn of New South Wales ('anthrax' Gunn). This book contains much original information showing how Gunns integrated into new lands. This work has taken many years and builds on documents held within the family and much detailed genealogical research. Two versions are available; a paperback black and white version and a deluxe hardback version with some colour photographs. The information and images are the same in both texts.

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Page Count

487

Publisher

Lulu.com

Published Date

ISBN 10

1105696510

ISBN 13

9781105696510

Biopesticides

Pest Management and Regulation

By: Wyn P. Grant,David Chandler,Alastair Bailey,Justin Greaves,M. Tatchell,Gillian Prince

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Biopesticides

Pest Management and Regulation

By: Wyn P. Grant,David Chandler,Alastair Bailey,Justin Greaves,M. Tatchell,Gillian Prince

Biological controls that utilize natural predation, parasitism or other natural mechanisms, is an environmentally friendly alternative to chemical pesticides. Chemical pesticide methods are becoming less readily available due to increasing resistance problems and the prohibition of some substances. This book addresses the challenges of insufficient information and imperfectly understood regulatory processes in using biopesticides. It takes an interdisciplinary approach providing internationally comparative analyses on the registration of biopesticides and debates future biopesticide practices.

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Page Count

240

Publisher

CABI

Published Date

ISBN 10

184593590X

ISBN 13

9781845935900

Renaissance Realism

Narrative Images in Literature and Art

By: Alastair Fowler

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Renaissance Realism

Narrative Images in Literature and Art

By: Alastair Fowler

Early narratives have tended to be critiqued as novels, an approach that misses their distinctive Renaissance realism. Alastair Fowler surveys picturing and perspective from the fifteenth century to the eighteenth, drawing analogies between literature and visual art. The book is based on the history of the narrative imagination after single-point perspective. The habit of an older, multi-point perspective long continued, accounting for "anachronism," discontinuous realism, "double time-schemes," and depiction of different moments as simultaneous.

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Page Count

314

Published Date

ISBN 10

0199259585

ISBN 13

9780199259588

Translations of Authority in Medieval English Literature

Valuing the Vernacular

By: Alastair Minnis

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Translations of Authority in Medieval English Literature

Valuing the Vernacular

By: Alastair Minnis

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Page Count

291

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0521515947

ISBN 13

9780521515948

Hellish Imaginations from Augustine to Dante

An Essay in Metaphor and Materiality

By: Alastair Minnis

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Hellish Imaginations from Augustine to Dante

An Essay in Metaphor and Materiality

By: Alastair Minnis

Medieval literature and art abounds in descriptions of grotesque torments (punitive in hell, redemptive in purgatory) being meted out to the unhappy dead. But how can pain be experienced in the absence of the body? Can the main agents of suffering specified in Old Testament prophecies, fire and the worm, actually trouble a disembodied soul? The relative merits of material and metaphorical understandings of the economy of pain were debated throughout the Middle Ages, and extended far beyond, surviving the abolition of purgatory within Protestantism. This book brings to life many of the intellectual clashes, beginning with Augustine’s foundational yet troubling doctrines, proceeding to the problems caused by Aristotle’s insistence that death kills off all sense and sensation, and culminating in a fresh reading of Dante’s Purgatorio, Canto XXV. Wide-ranging, lucid and bristling with ideas on every page, it illustrates superbly well the variety, liveliness and continuous creativity of scholastic thought, particularly in respect of the contribution it made to literary theory.

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290

Publisher

Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literature

Published Date

ISBN 10

0907570518

ISBN 13

9780907570516

The Cambridge Introduction to Chaucer

By: Alastair Minnis

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The Cambridge Introduction to Chaucer

By: Alastair Minnis

Geoffrey Chaucer is the best-known and most widely read of all medieval British writers, famous for his scurrilous humour and biting satire against the vices and absurdities of his age. Yet he was also a poet of passionate love, sensitive to issues of gender and sexual difference, fascinated by the ideological differences between the pagan past and the Christian present, and a man of science, knowledgeable in astronomy, astrology and alchemy. This concise book is an ideal starting point for study of all his major poems, particularly The Canterbury Tales, to which two chapters are devoted. It offers close readings of individual texts, presenting various possibilities for interpretation, and includes discussion of Chaucer's life, career, historical context and literary influences. An account of the various ways in which he has been understood over the centuries leads into an up-to-date, annotated guide to further reading.

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