Absent Narratives, Manuscript Textuality, And Literary Structure In Late Medieval England; Author: Scala, Elizabeth; Hardback; Book

Author: Scala, Elizabeth
New Middle Ages; Hardback; Book
304 pages
Published: September 2002
Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 0312240430

Absent Narratives, Manuscript Textuality, and Literary Structure in Late Medieval England is a book about the defining difference between medieval and modern stories. In chapters devoted to the major writers of the late medieval period--Chaucer, Gower, the Gawain-poet and Malory--it presents and then analyzes a set of unique and unnoticed phenomena in medieval narrative, namely the persistent appearance of missing stories: stories implied, alluded to, or fragmented by a larger narrative. Far from being trivial digressions or passing curiosities, these absent narratives prove central to the way these medieval works function and to why they have affected readers in particular ways. Traditionally unseen, ignored, or explained away by critics, absent narratives offer a valuable nThis volume is about the defining difference between medieval and modern stories. In chapters devoted to the major writers of the late medieval period, it analyses the persistent appearance of missing stories: stories implied, alluded to, or fragmented by a larger narrative.