Description
Book SynopsisLike the Bible upon which it is based, the metrical paraphrase is unlikely to be a text read cover-to-cover by the faint-hearted. The
Paraphrase is, in several ways, a remarkable artifact of the Chaucerian period, one that can reveal a great deal about vernacular biblical literature in Middle English, about readership and lay understandings of the Bible, about the relationship between Christians and Jews in late medieval England, about the environment in which the Lollards and other reformers worked, about perceived roles of women in history and in society, and even about the composition of medieval drama. The
Paraphrase-poet's proclamation that he intends to write stories "for sympyll men" (line 19) to understand the Scriptures and be engaged by them—"That men may lyghtly leyre / to tell and undertake yt" (lines 23–24)—thus combines the profit of sacred literature with the pleasure of the secular. This is Horace's
utile et dulce ("both useful and pleasing") principle at its clearest, a singular example of the didacticism that characterizes so much of medieval literature, an aesthetic of pedagogic efficacy that is inseparably linked to the essential component of true pleasure in the text.
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
Introduction
The Middle English Metrical Paraphrase of the Old Testament Prologue
Book of Genesis
Book of Exodus
Book of Numbers
Book of Deuteronomy
Book of Joshua
Book of Judges
Book of Ruth
First Book of Kings (1 Samuel)
Second Book of Kings (2 Samuel)
Third Book of Kings (1 Kings)
Fourth Book of Kings (2 Kings)
Book of Job
Book of Tobias
Book of Esther
Book of Judith
Second Book of Maccabees 7
Second Book of Maccabees 6 and 9
Explanatory Notes
Textual Notes
Bibliography
