Search results for ""Author Eric Jager""

In today's increasingly electronic world, we say our personality traits are "hard-wired" and we "replay" our memories. But we use a different metaphor when we speak of someone "reading" another's mind or a desire to "turn over a new leaf" - these phrases refer to the "book of the self", an idea that dates from the beginnings of Western culture. Eric Jager traces the history and psychology of the self-as-text concept from antiquity to the modern day. He focuses especially on the Middle Ages, when the metaphor of a "book of the heart" modelled on the manuscript codex attained its most vivid expressions in literature and art. For instance, mediaeval saints' legends tell of martyrs whose hearts recorded divine inscriptions; lyrics and romances feature lovers whose hearts are inscribed with their passion; paintings depict hearts as books; and mediaeval scribes even produced manuscript codices shaped like hearts. In a far-reaching conclusion, Jager considers what the much-prophesied "death of the book" might portend for 21st-century conceptions of the post-textual self.

Read more less

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERNow a major motion picture directed by Ridley Scott starring Matt Damon, Adam Driver and Jodie Comer.In 1386, a few days after Christmas, a massive crowd gathered at a Paris monastery to watch two men fight a duel to the death. A trial by combat to prove which man's cause was right in God's sight.The dramatic story of the knight, the squire and the lady unfolds during the tumultuous fourteenth century. A time of war, plague and anarchy, as well as of honour, chivalry, and courtly love.The notorious quarrel appears in many histories of France, but no writer has recounted it in full, until now._______________________________________________________________'Succeeds brilliantly in combining page-turning intensity with eye-opening insights' Sunday Times'Suspenseful and well written' Spectator

Read more less

In today's increasingly electronic world, we say our personality traits are "hard-wired" and we "replay" our memories. But we use a different metaphor when we speak of someone "reading" another's mind or a desire to "turn over a new leaf" - these phrases refer to the "book of the self", an idea that dates from the beginnings of Western culture. Eric Jager taces the history and psychology of the self-as-text concept from antiquity to the modern day. He focuses especially on the Middle Ages, when the metaphor of a "book of the heart" modelled on the manuscript codex attained its most vivid expressions in literature and art. For instance, mediaeval saints' legends tell of martyrs whose hearts recorded divine inscriptions; lyrics and romances feature lovers whose hearts are inscribed with their passion; paintings depict hearts as books; and mediaeval scribes even produced manuscript codices shaped like hearts. In a far-reaching conclusion, Jager considers what the much-prophesied "death of the book" might portend for 21st-century conceptions of the post-textual self.

Read more less

Why 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, Jager shows how patristic and medieval authors used the Fall to confront practical and theoretical problems in many areas of life and thought—including education, hermeneutics, rhetoric, feudal politics, and gender relations. Jager explores the Fall's meaning for clergy and laity, nobles and commoners, men and women. Among the works Jager discusses are texts by Ambrose, Augustine, the early Christian poet Avitus, and scholastic authors; Old English biblical epics; Middle English spiritual writings; French courtesy books; and the poetry of Dante and Chaucer. Examples from the visual arts are included as well. Jager links medieval interpretations of the Fall to underlying cultural anxieties about the ambiguity of the sign, the instability of oral tradition, the pleasure of the text, and the many rhetorical guises of the tempter's voice. He also assesses the modern and postmodern legacy of the Fall, showing how this myth continues to embody central ideas concerning language. The Tempter's Voice will be essential reading for scholars and students in such fields as medieval studies, literary theory, gender theory, comparative literature, cultural history, and the history of religion.

Read more less