Can I read The Ethics of Reading in Manuscript Culture : Glossing the Libro De Buen Amor on EtoBox?

The Ethics of Reading in Manuscript Culture : Glossing the Libro De Buen Amor by John Dagenais is a book available to read on EtoBox.

What is The Ethics of Reading in Manuscript Culture : Glossing the Libro De Buen Amor about?

Reexamining the roles played by author, reader, scribe, and text in medieval literary practice, John Dagenais argues that the entire physical manuscript must be the basis of any discussion of how meaning was made. Medievalists, he maintains, have relied too heavily on critical editions that seek to create a single, definitive text reflecting an author's intentions. In reality, manuscripts bear not only authorial texts but also a variety of elements added by scribes and readers: glosses, marginal notes, pointing hands, illuminations, and fragments of other, seemingly unrelated works. Using the surviving manuscripts of the fourteenth-century Libro de buen amor, a work that has been read both as didactic treatise on spiritual love and as a celebration of sensual pleasures, Dagenais shows how consideration of the physical manuscripts and their cultural context can shed new light on interpretive issues that have puzzled modern readers.Dagenais also addresses the theory and practice of reading in the Middle Ages, showing that for medieval readers the text on the manuscript leaf, including the text of the Libro, was primarily rhetorical and ethical in nature. It spoke to them directly, in

Author

John Dagenais

Publisher

Princeton University Press

Published

1994

Language

EN

ISBN

9781400821075

Subjects

Literary Criticism, Literary Fiction, Romance

Rating

4.33 / 5 (3 ratings)

Updated

2026-03-13