Reading in the Wilderness: Private Devotion and Public Performance in Late Medieval EnglandJust as twenty-first-century technologies like blogs and wikis have transformed the once private act of reading into a public enterprise, devotional reading experiences in the Middle Ages were dependent upon an oscillation between the solitary and the communal. In Reading in the Wilderness, Jessica Brantley uses tools from both literary criticism and art history to illuminate Additional MS 37049, an illustrated Carthusian miscellany housed in the British Library. This revealing artifact, Brantley argues, closes the gap between group spectatorship and private study in late medieval England. Drawing on the work of W. J. T. Mitchell, Michael Camille, and others working at the image-text crossroads, Reading in the Wilderness addresses the manuscript’s texts and illustrations to examine connections between reading and performance within the solitary monk’s cell and also outside. Brantley reimagines the medieval codex as a site where the meanings of images and words are performed, both publicly and privately, in the act of reading. |
Contents
| 1 | |
Carthusian Devotional Reading and Meditative Practice | 27 |
3 The Shapes of Eremitic Reading in the Desert of Religion | 81 |
4 Lyric Imaginings and Painted Prayers | 121 |
5 Liturgical Pageantry in Private Spaces | 167 |
6 Envisioning Dialogue in Performance | 211 |
Theatrical Performances in Monastic Reading | 269 |
Reading Performances | 301 |
Contents of British Library MS Additional 37049 | 307 |
Notes | 327 |
Bibliography | 395 |
| 449 | |
| 453 | |
Other editions - View all
Reading in the Wilderness: Private Devotion and Public Performance in Late ... Jessica Brantley No preview available - 2007 |
Common terms and phrases
angel Anglistik und Amerikanistik artist Bodleian British Library Cambridge Carthusian miscellany Carthusian monk Carthusian Order cell charterhouse Chartreuse Christ church connection context D. S. Brewer Desert of Religion dialogue Drama English Religious Lyric eremitic example excerpts fifteenth-century Figure genre gode Grande Chartreuse Gray Guigo hermit Hogg Holy Name Iconography illustrated imagery imagetext imagine Institut für Anglistik James Hogg late-medieval Latin Library MS Additional Library of Victoria literary liturgical London London Charterhouse manuscript Margery Kempe meditative Methley Middle Ages Middle English monastic monks MWME Mystical narrative NIMEV Oxford Passion Petrus Christus Pilgrimage play poem prayer private reading prose reader readerly reveal Richard Rolle sacraments saint Salzburg solitary song Soul Spiritual Encyclopedia Stowe Studies Syon Abbey texts and images textual Thomas Hoccleve tion University Press vernacular verses Virgin vision visual voice wilderness words þat þis