All's Well That Ends Well, with its marriage plot, bed‐trick, and intergenerational interactions, has in recent times drawn the attention of scholars of gender and sexuality. This chapter considers ...whether or not the Shakespearean text, irrecoverable though it may be, suggested a different reading of Helen's character. It begins by discussing an eighteenth‐century adaptation of the play that omitted the virginity dialogue, and explains the critical and cultural reception of Helen's exchange with Paroles. Next, the chapter describes how the first scene could be reconstructed without the passage and the editorial cruces that must be reconsidered in the light of this new evidence. It then explains how adaptation is an act of literary interpretation. The chapter also argues that Thomas Middleton's reading of Helen is particularly adept, producing a version of Helen that draws attention to, and complements, the same muddle of motives and misgivings that distinguishes Shakespeare's creation.
The City and the Text Wiggins, Alison
The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Literature in English,
04/2010
Book Chapter
This article examines London literature during the medieval period. It analyses whether the definition of London literature should be focused around writers or whether it should prioritize dialect, ...books, texts, scribes, or readers, or perhaps a combination of these. It investigates how geography should be related to literary culture and how locality engages with issues of literary interpretation or interact with methods and modes of reading. It also comments on some notable London literature including Auchinleck Manuscript, The Anonymous Short English Metrical Chronicle, and Bevis of Hamtoun.
The Spanish poet Moses Ibn 'Ezra is the author of a work of philosophical and philological nature, entitled Treaty of the Garden. In the first part of this work Moses Ibn 'Ezra develops topics of ...theology, metaphysics, human physiology and psychology, all related to his linguistic and terminological analysis on some passages of the Hebrew Bible. In this paper I argue that both the general scheme of the mentioned work and the treatment made by Moses Ibn 'Ezra of some subjects, could have served Maimonides as a model for his Guide to perplexing.
El poeta español Moses Ibn 'Ezra es autor de una obra de carácter filosófico y filológico, titulada Tratado del jardín. En la primera parte de esta obra Moses Ibn 'Ezra desarrolla temas de teología, metafísica, fisiología humana y psicología, todo ello al hilo de su análisis lingüístico y terminológico sobre algunos pasajes dé la Biblia Hebrea. En el presente trabajo sostengo que tanto el esquema general de la obra mencionada como el tratamiento que hace Moses Ibn 'Ezra de algunos temas, podrían haber servido a Maimónides de modelo para su Guía de perplejos.
In this paper an outline of a theory of archaeological grammar is developed. The type of discourse this theory deals with is explained, as well as the relevance of the theory for a critique of both ...the positivist and deconstructionist models of text and discourse. Reference is made to the opening phrases in the Prologue of the Gospel of John to illustrate some of the basic concepts of the theory. Examples such as the modern reverence for the human mind or for social justice are also dealt with in the analysis, to indicate how the principles of archaeological grammar underlie both the biblical and the modernist language of belief. Connecting links which this grammar may have with other theories, such as the study of rhetoric or speech act theory or conceptual semantics, are briefly pointed out.
One of the things that have always fascinated me about Harry’s writing is how much of his own intellectual community he manages to get inside it. Not just the poets and philosophers with whom he ...converses across centuries, but the rest of us, too; more than any other critic I know, he builds his arguments out of encounters with the thinking of other members of his guild, our guild. A Berger essay will often contain its share of citation en passant, tips of the hat here or there—but what is distinctive is his regular habit of stopping to give
