Check nearby libraries
Buy this book
"This is the first book to examine a peculiar feature of one of the greatest and most perplexing poems of England's late Middle Ages - the successive attempts of Piers Plowman to begin, and to keep beginning. D. Vance Smith compels us to rethink beginning, as concept and practice, in both medieval and contemporary terms.".
"The problem of beginning was invested with increasing urgency in the 1300s; it was grappled with in England's courts, churches, universities, workshops, fields, and streets. The Book of the Incipit reveals how Langland's poem exemplifies the widespread interest in beginning in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, an interest that is evident in such divergent fields as physics, time measurement, logic, grammar, rhetoric, theology, and book production.".
"Smith offers a theoretical understanding of beginning that departs from the structuralisms of Edward Said, the traditional formalisms of A. D. Nuttall, and most medievalist and modernist treatments of closure. Instead, he views a work's beginning as a figure of the beginning of the work itself, and the inception of language as the problem of beginning to which we continually return."--BOOK JACKET.
Check nearby libraries
Buy this book
Previews available in: English
Subjects
Christian poetry, English (Middle), English language, History and criticism, Incipits, Medieval Rhetoric, Openings (Rhetoric), Rhetoric, Technique, Langland, william, 1330?-1400?, Christian poetry, history and criticism, English language, middle english, 1100-1500, Openings (rhetoric), Rhetoric, medievalShowing 1 featured edition. View all 1 editions?
Edition | Availability |
---|---|
1
The book of the incipit: beginnings in the fourteenth century
2001, University of Minnesota Press
in English
0816637601 9780816637607
|
aaaa
Libraries near you:
WorldCat
|
Book Details
Edition Notes
Includes bibliographical references (p. 261-281) and index.
Classifications
The Physical Object
ID Numbers
Community Reviews (0)
Feedback?November 14, 2023 | Edited by MARC Bot | import existing book |
December 29, 2021 | Edited by ImportBot | import existing book |
December 6, 2010 | Edited by Open Library Bot | Added subjects from MARC records. |
April 28, 2010 | Edited by Open Library Bot | Linked existing covers to the work. |
December 10, 2009 | Created by WorkBot | add works page |