Jane Chance – författare

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—including Dante, Boccaccio, and Christine de Pizan—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 between these poets and their unique and personal approaches to mythological commentary.

" With New Line Cinema''s production of The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, the popularity of the works of J.R.R. Tolkien is unparalleled. Tolkien''s books continue to be bestsellers decades after their original publication. An epic in league with those of Spenser and Malory, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, begun during Hitler''s rise to power, celebrates the insignificant individual as hero in the modern world. Jane Chance''s critical appraisal of Tolkien''s heroic masterwork is the first to explore its "mythology of power"--that is, how power, politics, and language interact. Chance looks beyond the fantastic, self-contained world of Middle-earth to the twentieth-century parallels presented in the trilogy.

" With New Line Cinema''s production of The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, the popularity of the works of J.R.R. Tolkien is unparalleled. Tolkien''s books continue to be bestsellers decades after their original publication. An epic in league with those of Spenser and Malory, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, begun during Hitler''s rise to power, celebrates the insignificant individual as hero in the modern world. Jane Chance''s critical appraisal of Tolkien''s heroic masterwork is the first to explore its "mythology of power"--that is, how power, politics, and language interact. Chance looks beyond the fantastic, self-contained world of Middle-earth to the twentieth-century parallels presented in the trilogy.

Interdisciplinary in approach, Tolkien the Medievalist provides a fresh perspective on J. R. R. Tolkien''s Medievalism. In fifteen essays, eminent scholars and new voices explore how Professor Tolkien responded to a modern age of crisis - historical, academic and personal - by adapting his scholarship on medieval literature to his own personal voice. The four sections reveal the author influenced by his profession, religious faith and important issues of the time; by his relationships with other medievalists; by the medieval sources that he read and taught, and by his own medieval mythologizing.

Interdisciplinary in approach, Tolkien the Medievalist provides a fresh perspective on J. R. R. Tolkien''s Medievalism. In fifteen essays, eminent scholars and new voices explore how Professor Tolkien responded to a modern age of crisis - historical, academic and personal - by adapting his scholarship on medieval literature to his own personal voice. The four sections reveal the author influenced by his profession, religious faith and important issues of the time; by his relationships with other medievalists; by the medieval sources that he read and taught, and by his own medieval mythologizing.