Machines of the mind : personification in medieval literature / Katharine Breen.
| Author/creator | Breen, Katharine, 1973- author. |
| Format | Book |
| Publication | Chicago ; London : The University of Chicago Press, 2021. |
| Copyright Date | ©2021 |
| Description | viii, 365 pages ; 23 cm |
| Subjects |
| Portion of title | Personification in medieval literature |
| Contents | Introduction -- Prudentian personification. Consecratus manu : men forming gods forming men ; How to fight like a girl : Christianizing personification in the Psychomachia -- Neoplatonic personification. Ex uno omnia : Plato's forms and daemons ; Oh, nurse! The Boethian daemon -- Aristotelian personification. E pluribus unum : abstracting universals from particulars ; Dreaming of Aristotle in the Songe d'Enfer and Winner and waster -- A good body is hard to find : putting personification through the paces in Piers Plowman. |
| Abstract | "Katharine Breen challenges our understanding of how medieval authors received philosophical paradigms from antiquity in their construction and use of personification in their writings. She shows that our modern categories for this literary device (extreme realism versus extreme rhetoric, or novelistic versus allegorical characters) would've been unrecognizable to their medieval practitioners. Through new readings of key authors and works--including Prudentius's "Psychomachia," Langland's "Piers Plowman," Boethius's "Consolation of Philosophy," and Deguileville's "Pilgrimage of Human Life"--she finds that medieval writers accessed a richer, more fluid literary domain than modern critics have allowed. Breen identifies three different types of personification--Platonic, Aristotelian, and Prudentian--inherited from antiquity that both gave medieval writers a surprisingly varied spectrum with which to paint their characters, while bypassing the modern confusion of conflicting relationships between personifications and persons on the path connecting divine power and human frailty. Recalling Gregory the Great's phrase "machinae mentis" (machines of the mind), Breen demonstrates that medieval writers applied personification with utility and subtlety, much the same way that, within the category of hand-tools, an open-end wrench differs in function from a hex-key wrench or a socket wrench. It will be read by medievalists working at the crossroads of religion, philosophy, and literature, as well as scholars interested in character-making and gendered relationships among characters, readers, and texts beyond the Middle Ages"-- Provided by publisher. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| Issued in other form | ebook version : 9780226776620 |
| Genre/form | Criticism, interpretation, etc. |
| LCCN | 2020051233 |
| ISBN | 9780226776453 hardcover |
| ISBN | 022677645X hardcover |
| ISBN | 9780226776590 paperback |
| ISBN | 022677659X paperback |
| ISBN | electronic book |
Availability
| Library | Location | Call Number | Status | Item Actions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Joyner | General Stacks | PN682 .P475 B74 2021 | ✔ Available | Place Hold |