The Tempter's Voice: Language and the Fall in Medieval Literature

Eric Jager

Published by Cornell University Press 2006

The Tempter's Voice

Language and the Fall in Medieval Literature

Eric Jager

https://doi.org/10.7591/9781501721823

Overview
Contents

About this book

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...

Author / Editor information

Eric Jager is Professor of English at UCLA. He is the author of The Book of the Heart and The Last Duel: A True Story of Crime, Scandal, and Trial by Combat in Medieval France.

Reviews

Lawrence Besserman:

While working with the traditional conceptual framework that brings allegory, typology, and exegetical models to bear on the interpretation of medieval vernacular literature, Jager also manages to bring those subjects into harmonious and productive discourse with contemporary literary theory, new historicism, gender theory, and psychoanalytic theory.... The Tempter's Voice makes a significant contribution to medieval studies.

Gene Vance:

This thoughtful, carefully argued, and well-written book studies 'the Fall as a central medieval myth about language, particularly about doctrine, hermeneutics, and eloquence.'

Norm Klassen:

This book benefits from wide-ranging structuralist, poststructuralist, and feminist interest in Augustinian theories of language and the Fall.... Jager has identified and developed many important issues... and has offered many perceptive observations.

A very valuable addition to the many studies of both the Fall and how language can be manipulated to clarify or confuse a given issue.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
ILLUSTRATIONS Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
ABBREVIATIONS Publicly Available Download PDF	xiii
NOTE ON BIBLICAL CITATIONS Publicly Available Download PDF	xvii
INTRODUCTION Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part One. Augustine's Garden
1. The School of Paradise Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	23
2. The Genesis of Hermeneutics Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	51
3. The Garden of Eloquence Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	99
Part Two. The Medieval Garden
4. The Old English Epic of the Fall Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	145
5. The Seducer and the Daughter of Eve Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	191
6. The Carnal Letter in Chaucer's Earthly Paradise Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	241
Epilogue. Signs of the Fall: From the Middle Ages to Postmodernism Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	299
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	307
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	325

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Audience: General/trade;
Pages
- Main content: 352
Illustrations
- Other: 7 halftones
Keywords: Medieval & Renaissance Studies; Religious Studies; Literary Studies

eBook

Published: July 5, 2018
ISBN: 9781501721823