Description
Book SynopsisWhy was the story of Adam, Eve, and the Serpent so important to medieval literary culture? Eric Jager argues that during the Middle Ages the story of the Fall was incorporated into a comprehensive myth about language. Drawing on a wide range of texts...
Trade ReviewA very valuable addition to the many studies of both the Fall and how language can be manipulated to clarify or confuse a given issue.
* Choice *
This book benefits from wide-ranging structuralist, poststructuralist, and feminist interest in Augustinian theories of language and the Fall.... Jager has identified and developed many important issues... and has offered many perceptive observations.
-- Norm Klassen * Medium Aevum *
This thoughtful, carefully argued, and well-written book studies 'the Fall as a central medieval myth about language, particularly about doctrine, hermeneutics, and eloquence.'
-- Gene Vance * Bryn Mawr Medieval Review *
While working with the traditional conceptual framework that brings allegory, typology, and exegetical models to bear on the interpretation of medieval vernacular literature, Jager also manages to bring those subjects into harmonious and productive discourse with contemporary literary theory, new historicism, gender theory, and psychoanalytic theory.... The Tempter's Voice makes a significant contribution to medieval studies.
-- Lawrence Besserman * Speculum *
