Medieval Mythography, Volume 3 The Emergence of Italian Humanism, 1321-1475 / [electronic resource] :
Chance, Jane,1945-author.
Gainesville [Florida] : University Press of Florida,
[2015]
With this volume, Jane Chance concludes her monumental study of the history of mythography in medieval literature. Her focus here is the advent of hybrid mythography, the transformation of mythological commentary by blending the scholarly with the courtly and the personal. Chance's in-depth examination of works by the major writers of the period demonstrates how they essentially co-opted a thousand-year tradition. Their intricate narratives of identity mixed commentary with poetry, reinterpreted classical gods and heroes to suit personal agendas, and gave rise to innovative techniques such as "inglossation"--the use of a mythological figure to comment on the protagonist within an autobiographical allegory. In this manner, through allegorical authorial projection of the self, the poets explored a subjective world and manifested a burgeoning humanism that would eventually come to full fruition in the Renaissance. No other work examines the mythographic interrelationships among these poets and their unique and personal approaches to mythological commentary.
Description based upon print version of record.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Abbreviations and citation editions -- Chronology of medieval mythographers and commentary authors -- Introduction -- Toward a subjective mythography : allegorical figurae and authorial self-projection -- Dante's self-mythography : the inverted Ovid "commentary" of the Commedia (1321) and its family glosses -- "Iohannes de Certaldo" : self-validation in Boccaccio's "Genealogies of the gods" (ca. 1350-75) -- Franco-Italian Christine de Pizan's Epistre othea (1399-1401) : a feminized commentary on Ovid -- Coluccio Salutati's Hercules as Vir perfectus : justifying Seneca's Hercules furens in de Laboribus Herculis (1378?-1405) -- Cristoforo landino's "Judgment of Aeneas" in the Disputationes camaldulenses (1475) -- Conclusion.
With this volume, Jane Chance concludes her monumental study of the history of mythography in medieval literature. Her focus here is the advent of hybrid mythography, the transformation of mythological commentary by blending the scholarly with the courtly and the personal. Chance's in-depth examination of works by the major writers of the period demonstrates how they essentially co-opted a thousand-year tradition. Their intricate narratives of identity mixed commentary with poetry, reinterpreted classical gods and heroes to suit personal agendas, and gave rise to innovative techniques such as "inglossation"--the use of a mythological figure to comment on the protagonist within an autobiographical allegory. In this manner, through allegorical authorial projection of the self, the poets explored a subjective world and manifested a burgeoning humanism that would eventually come to full fruition in the Renaissance. No other work examines the mythographic interrelationships among these poets and their unique and personal approaches to mythological commentary.
Description based on print version record.
Ecole de Chartres.
Humanism
Mythology
Criticism, Medieval
Literature, Medieval
Literature, Medieval
Latin literature, Medieval and modern
Civilization, Medieval
Mythology, Classical, in literature.