Originally published in 1994, Oral Tradition in Middle English is an edited collection providing a multidisciplinary look at the importance and nature of oral tradition in Middle English literature. The book offers a discussion of the gradual problemization of orality and literacy in works of verbal art from this period. It shows how early typographies proved too exclusive to explain the heterogeneity of relevant texts, bringing to bear the new and potentially productive concepts of "vocality" and developing literacy. This book establishes a new interpretive paradigm for Middle English poetry.
Introduction: Oral Poetics in Post-Conquest England, Mark C. Amodio
Introduction to the Individual Contributions, Sarah Gray Miller
1. Literacy, Orality, and the Poetics of Middle English, Nancy Mason Bradbury
2. Oral Tradition in the Middle English Romance: The Case of Robert of Cisyle, Alexandra Hennesey Olsen
3. Tradition and Heroism in the Middle English Romances, Dave Henderson
4. The Devil’s Writing Lesson, John M. Ganim
5. Dorigen’s Promise and Scholars’ Premise: The Orality of the Speech Act in The Franklin’s Tale, Leslie K. Arnovick
6. Oral Tradition and the Canterbury Tales, Ward Parks
7. "Now Holde Youre Mouthe". The Romance of Orality in the Thopas-Melibee Section of the Canterbury Tales, Seth Lerer
8. Wyrchipe: The Clash of Oral-Heroic and Literate-Ricardan Ideals in the Alliterative Morte Arthure, Donna Lynne Rondolone
9. The Alliterative Morte Arthure As a Witness to Epic, Britton J. Harwood
Contributors
Biography
Mark C. Amodio
