Engaging Words: The Culture of Reading in the Later Middle Ages

Acts of reading appear everywhere in the late Middle Ages, from the margins of Books of Hours to self-portraits of authors in their studies. What relevance did this image have for the late medieval imagination? Engaging Words is an interdisciplinary study on the conception of reading in late medieval society. Beginning with an examination of the social conditions that produced a viable reading public, the book proceeds to examine popular tastes, the interrelationship between manuscript form and content, and finally the theory and poetry of late medieval authors. By drawing on images from late medieval culture as well as from historical documents and literary texts, Engaging Words shows how reading became a cultural metaphor in the late Middle Ages that transformed the way the Western world thought about identity and social roles.

Author: L. Amtower
Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
Published: 12/18/2002
Pages: 243
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.89lbs
Size: 8.56h x 5.81w x 0.95d
ISBN: 9780312233839

Review Citation(s):
Choice 10/01/2001 pg. 294

About the Author
Laurel Amtower is Associate Professor of English at San Diego State University.