Description
Book SynopsisCalling into question the common assumption that the Middle Ages produced no secondary epics, Ann W. Astell here revises a key chapter in literary history. She examines the connections between the Book of Job and Boethius'' s Consolation of Philosophytexts closely associated with each other in the minds of medieval readers and writersand demonstrates that these two works served as a conduit for the tradition of heroic poetry from antiquity through the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance. As she traces the complex influences of classical and biblical texts on vernacular literature, Astell offers provocative readings of works by Dante, Chaucer, Spenser, Malory, Milton, and many others.
Astell looks at the relationship between the historical reception of the epic and successive imitative forms, showing how Boethius''s Consolation and Johan biblical commentaries echo the allegorical treatment of epic truth in the poems of Homer and Virgil, and how in turn many works
Trade Review
Though present-day critics, who concentrate on form, generally find the epic discontinuous in the Middle Ages, Astell argues that the genre persisted as the biblical book of Job and Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy were imitated and alluded to as examples throughout the period.... The scholarship is prodigious, the argument convincing, and the Christian stance congenial to the subject. Highly recommended.
* Choice *
