| FT-229294-15 | Research Programs: Summer Stipends | Sonja Drimmer | Timeless Texts, Timely Illustrations: Origins and Illumination of the Middle English Literary Canon | 6/1/2015 - 7/31/2015 | $6,000.00 | Sonja | | Drimmer | | | | University of Massachusetts, Amherst | Amherst | MA | 01003-9242 | USA | 2015 | Art History and Criticism | Summer Stipends | Research Programs | 6000 | 0 | 6000 | 0 | Summer research and writing on Art History and Criticism, British Literature and Medieval Studies.
The formation of a native literary canon is one of the milestones in the establishment of a national identity. England's moment came in the fifteenth century, against the background of two defining conflicts with lasting impact: the Hundred Years War (1337-1453) and the Wars of the Roses (1450-1485). At this time, royals and gentry alike commissioned manuscript copies of works by Chaucer, Gower, Lydgate, and Hoccleve, who translated into English and radically revised stories central to Western culture. A seldom recognized fact is that many of these manuscripts contain images, and that these images express patrons' ambitions to co-opt such narratives for their own individual and national designs. As a result, the role of the manuscript illuminator in this history has never been acknowledged. My book will offer the first in-depth study devoted to the emergence of England's first literary canon as a visual as well as a linguistic event. |