Staley has used and made advances on the best recent writing on Margery Kempe, and her book is a consolidation of the new position that has been won for the Book in English literary culture and history. Her distinction of 'Kempe' and 'Margery' will become the standard mode of reference, I think, and her argument concerning the narrative purposes and 'fictional' status of the story, and its implication in questions of authority, in the broadest sense, will be generally accepted as definitive.---Derek Pearsall, Harvard University"In this extremely original study, Lynn Staley argues that the Book of Margery Kempe is an exploratory and subtle work, exploring the communities, practices, and values of her fellow Christians. It turns out that this exploration is far more searching and critical than any studies of Kempe's work have appreciated. In elaborating the relevant arguments, Staley offers a range of fascinating readings of Kempe's relations to Lollardy, to the vernacular, to received rhetorics of gender, and to issues of national identity and its sacralizing construction in the reign of Henry V. Not only is the Book far more critical of late medieval church and of mercantile life than existing scholarship has suggested, it develops a radical investigation of the dominant social institutions and forms of relationship in late medieval England. Furthermore, Staley argues that Kempe produces a vision of a new ecclesia, one shaped by women and women's relations, in the face of a fragmented but habitually violent and persecutory set of ruling institutions and practices. This book is a major contribution to medieval studies."---David Aers, Duke UniversityMargery Kempe's Dissenting Fictions, a contextual and historical study of the Book, focuses on Kempe's ability to construct a fiction that exploits the conventions of sacred biography and devotional prose as the means of scrutinizing the very foundations of fifteenth-century English society. Thus, though the Book is
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Editorial Reviews
Review
Staley has used and made advances on the best recent writing on Margery Kempe, and her book is a consolidation of the new position that has been won for the Book in English literary culture and history. Her distinction of 'Kempe' and 'Margery' will become the standard mode of reference, I think, and her argument concerning the narrative purposes and 'fictional' status of the story, and its implication in questions of authority, in the broadest sense, will be generally accepted as definitive. --Derek Pearsall
In this extremely original study, Lynn Staley argues that the Book of Margery Kempe is an exploratory and subtle work, exploring the communities, practices, and values of her fellow Christians. It turns out that this exploration is far more searching and critical than any studies of Kempe's work have appreciated. In elaborating the relevant arguments, Staley offers a range of fascinating readings of Kempe's relations to Lollardy, to the vernacular, to received rhetorics of gender, and to issues of national identity and its sacralizing construction in the reign of Henry V. Not only is the Book far more critical of late medieval church and of mercantile life than existing scholarship has suggested, it develops a radical investigation of the dominant social institutions and forms of relationship in late medieval England. Furthermore, Staley argues that Kempe produces a vision of a new ecclesia, one shaped by women and women s relations, in the face of a fragmented but habitually violent and persecutory set of ruling institutions and practices. This book is a major contribution to medieval studies. --David Aers, Duke University --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
In this extremely original study, Lynn Staley argues that the Book of Margery Kempe is an exploratory and subtle work, exploring the communities, practices, and values of her fellow Christians. It turns out that this exploration is far more searching and critical than any studies of Kempe's work have appreciated. In elaborating the relevant arguments, Staley offers a range of fascinating readings of Kempe's relations to Lollardy, to the vernacular, to received rhetorics of gender, and to issues of national identity and its sacralizing construction in the reign of Henry V. Not only is the Book far more critical of late medieval church and of mercantile life than existing scholarship has suggested, it develops a radical investigation of the dominant social institutions and forms of relationship in late medieval England. Furthermore, Staley argues that Kempe produces a vision of a new ecclesia, one shaped by women and women s relations, in the face of a fragmented but habitually violent and persecutory set of ruling institutions and practices. This book is a major contribution to medieval studies. --David Aers, Duke University --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
About the Author
Lynn Staley is Professor of English at Colgate University and author of The Shepheardes Calender: An Introduction (Penn State, 1990) and The Voice of the Gawain-Poet (Wisconsin, 1984).
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1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very well done,
By Patrick Jones (Texas) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Margery Kempe's Dissenting Fictions (Hardcover)
Lynn Staley did a very good job. While I have reservations about the actual Margery Kempe and her version of the story, I have no reservations about Staley's work on the text. The punctuation was clear and very helpful in the understanding of the text. There were times where the clauses were very very long, but sentence breaks would only have severed the flow. Staley also did a wonderful job at helping the reader understand the words, explaining every word that would impede comprehension. Overall, I have to say that she did a wonderful job.
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