Offers the first full study of the allegorical knightly quest tradition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. Richly satisfying, as impressive in the detail of its scholarship as in the elegance of its critical formulations. It seamlessly moves between different literary traditions and across conventional period boundaries. In Dr Nievergelt's treatment of this theme, the successive retellings of the tale of the knight's quest come to stand as an emblemof shifting values and norms, both religious and worldly; and of our repeated failures to realise those ideals. Dr Alex Davis, Department of English, University of St Andrews. The literary motif of the allegorical knightly quest appears repeatedly in the literature of the late medieval/early modern period, notably in Spenser, but has hitherto been little examined. Here, in his examination of a number of sixteenth-century English allegorical-chivalric quest narratives, focussing on Spenser's Faerie Queene but including important, lesser-known works such as Stephen Bateman's Travayled Pylgrime and William Goodyear's Voyage of the Wandering Knight,the author argues that the tradition begins with the French writer Guillaume de Deguileville. His seminal Pelerinage de la vie humaine was composed c.1331-1355; it was widely adapted, translated, rewritten and printed overthe next centuries. Dr Nievergelt goes on to demonstrate how this essentially medieval literary form could be adapted to articulate reflections on changing patterns of identity, society and religion during the early modern period; and how it becomes a vehicle of self-exploration and self-fashioning during a period of profound cultural crisis. Dr Marco Nievergelt is Lecturer (Maitre Assitant) and SNF (Swiss National Science Foundation) Research Fellow in the English Department at the Universite de Lausanne
Product Identifiers
Publisher
Boydell & Brewer Ltd
ISBN-13
9781843843283
eBay Product ID (ePID)
117567288
Product Key Features
Book Title
Allegorical Quests from Deguileville to Spenser
Author
Marco Nievergelt
Format
Hardcover
Language
English
Topic
Literature
Publication Year
2012
Number of Pages
256 Pages
Dimensions
Item Height
234mm
Item Width
156mm
Additional Product Features
Title_Author
Marco Nievergelt
Country/Region of Manufacture
United Kingdom
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