Medieval Mythography, Volume Two - Paperback

by Jane Chance (Author)

The second volume in Jane Chance's study of the history of medieval mythography from the fifth through fifteenth centuries focuses on the time period in Western Europe between the School of Chartres and the papal court at Avignon. This examination of historical and philosophical developments in the story of mythography reflects the ever-increasing importance of the subjectivity of the commentator.

Through her vast and wide-ranging familiarity with hitherto seldom studied primary texts spanning nearly one thousand years, Chance provides a guide to the assimilation of classical myth into the Christian Middle Ages. Rich in insight and example, dense in documentation, and compelling in its interpretations, Medieval Mythography is an important tool for scholars of the classical tradition and for medievalists working in any language.

Author Biography

Jane Chance is the Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Professor of English Emerita at Rice University and recipient of an honorary doctorate from Purdue University (2013) as well as NEH and Guggenheim Fellowships. Author or editor of twenty-four other books, she has published Woman as Hero in Old English Literature (1986; rpr. 2005), and The Literary Subversions of Medieval Women (2007), as well as Gender and Text in the Later Middle Ages (1996). Her most recent book is Tolkien, Self and Other: "This Queer Creature" (2016). She is also Series Editor of the Library of Medieval Women (Boydell and Brewer), offering classroom translations of works by medieval women.