Medieval Images, Icons, and Illustrated English Literary Texts: From the Ruthwell Cross to the Ellesmere Chaucer

by Hilmo,Maidie

• ISBN13: 9780754631781
• ISBN10: 0754631788
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2016-12-14
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

This is the first study to cover the range of major illustrated English poems from the Anglo-Saxon period to the early 15th century. The author argues that the artists were familiar with the texts, flexible in adapting existing iconographies, and innovative in responding to the vernacular poems to guide the ethical reading process of their audience.This study convincingly demonstrates how the visual elements of texts interact with the verbal to manifest the real text of all the illustrated literary works that are so carefully prepared for their respective medieval audiences. Among the manuscripts examined here are the Caedmon MS, the Auchinleck and Vernon manuscripts, and the Pearl manuscript. Hilmo's thesis is not confined to overtly religious texts and images, but deals also with historical writing, such as Layamon's Brut, and with poetry designed ostensibly for entertainment, such as the Canterbury Tales.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	vi
Illustration Acknowledgments	xiii
Preface	xiv
Acknowledgments	xvii
Epigraphs	xviii
Introduction by Kathryn Kerby-Fulton	xix
1 Reading Medieval Images	1	(30)
2 Visual and Verbal Manifestations of the Dual Nature of Christ on the Ruthwell Cross	31	(29)
3 The Wisdom and Power of the Creative Word: Images for Meditation and Transformation of Self and Society in Late Anglo-Saxon England	60	(37)
4 The Revival of the Vernacular and the Illustrated Caligula, Auchinleck and Vernon Manuscripts	97	(41)
5 Creating a Visual Narrative of the Spiritual Journey to the New Jerusalem in the Pearl Manuscript	138	(22)
6 Framing Chaucer's Canterbury Tales for the Aristocratic Readers of the Ellesmere Manuscript	160	(40)
A Select Bibliography	200	(19)
Index of Manuscripts	219	(4)
General Index	223	(10)
Index of References	233