The Ethical Poetic of the Later Middle Ages – A decorum of convenient distincti…

The Ethical Poetic of the Later Middle AgesA Decorum of Convenient Distinction\nAuthor(s): Judson Boyce Allen\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: University of Toronto Press, Canada\nImprint: University of Toronto Press\nISBN-13: 9781442651395, 978-1442651395\nSynopsis\nThis study of the definition of literature in the late medieval period is based on manuals of writing and on literary commentary and glosses. It defines a method of reading which may now profitably explain medieval texts, and identifies new primary medieval evidence which may ground and guide new reading.\n\n Allen chooses texts whose commentary tradition provides the greatest opportunity for completeness. The most important of these is Ovids Metamorphoses. Medieval readings of Ovid bring into focus a number of major literary questionsthe problems of fable and fiction, of unity imposed by miscellany poetry, of allegorical commentary, and of Christian use of pagan cultureall in connection with text which furnished medieval .