Peter Dronke – författare

This book gives a detailed picture of the contributions made by women writers to Western literature from the third century to the thirteenth. Many of the texts Peter Dronke presents and interprets have hitherto remained unknown, or virtually inaccessible; some have never been edited or translated before. The emphasis throughout is on personal testimonies, and on texts that have notable literary or intellectual interest. Thus the book affords many new insights into medieval literature, not only into the writings of renowned women such as Hrotsvitha or Heloise, but also into those of a number of neglected writers who are exceptional in their gifts and individuality. Already highly influential, Women Writers of the Middle Ages continues to be essential reading for specialists and students alike in medieval literature, medieval intellectual history, and women's studies.

In this book, Peter Dronke illustrates how medieval Latin traditions can help us to understand Dante's great poem 'The Divine Comedy'. He first discusses medieval conceptions of allegory and vision, image and metaphor, symbol and myth, as well as some of Dante's own insights into the nature of poetic meaning. Later chapters relate particular moments in the Comedy - the giants in Inferno, the apocalyptic showings in Purgatorio, and the solar heaven in Paradiso - to Dante's Latin inheritance. All quotations from Italian are accompanied by English translations.

This is the first comprehensive study of the philosophical achievements of twelfth-century Western Europe. It is the collaboration of fifteen scholars whose detailed survey makes accessible the intellectual preoccupations of the period, with all texts cited in English translation throughout. After a discussion of the cultural context of twelfth-century speculation, and some of the main streams of thought - Platonic, Stoic, and Arabic - that quickened it, comes a characterisation of the new problems and perspectives of the period, in scientific inquiry, speculative grammar, and logic. This is followed by a closer examination of the distinctive features of some of the most innovative thinkers of the time, from Anselm and Abelard to the School of Chartres. A final section shows the impact of newly recovered works of Aristotle in the twelfth-century West.

This first volume of Cambridge Medieval Classics offers the text of nine of the most outstanding plays composed and performed in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the period of the finest flowering of medieval Latin drama. Newly edited and translated, the texts are given in both Latin and English, with detailed notes and apparatus to aid interpretation. They are selected to represent the range of dramatic achievement between about 1050 and 1180, when the use of sung play-texts, within a context of liturgical ceremony as well as for secular entertainment, was at its peak. The plays chosen are boldly inventive and compellingly imaginative, revealing the depth and range of the medieval dramatic mind. Included are works from France and Germany, a piece by Hildegard of Bingen, and the Passion Play from the Carmina Burana.

This highly acclaimed introduction to the medieval lyric during the period 850-1300 is now reissued in a third edition, which includes a new preface and substantial new bibliographical indications. After an introductory discussionof the performers and performance of lyrics in the middle ages, each chapter analyses one of the major lyrical genres and centres on close critical discussion of outstanding lyrics, with generous quotation of texts and translations. While the rise of religious lyric and the transformations of love-lyric receive the fullest treatment, there are also chapters on women's songs, on the alba, on dance-songs, and on `lyrics of realism'.

This volume presents a series of penetrating analyses of particular poems and problems of literary history illustrating the many sides of medieval poetry and the interactions of learned, popular and courtly traditions. The first and longest essay, 'Waltharius-Gaiferos', aims to characterize the diverse treatments of one of the major European heroic themes - in modes that include lay and epic, saga and ballad, and range from pre-Carolingian times to the Renaissance. There follow three interrelated essays on the medieval transformations of Ovid, and a larger group devoted to close reading of medieval lyrics. After discussing some brilliant Latin compositions, of the 9th-12th centuries, both sacred and profane, and the work of two of the most captivating 'goliard' poets, Peter Dronke looks at the earliest formations of love-lyric in two vernaculars, Spanish and English. Finally, he explores the unique symbiosis of Latin and vernacular imagery in two key moments of Dante's Divine Comedy. Ce volume contient une série d’analyses perspicaces de poèmes spécifiques et de certains problèmes de l’histoire littéraire illustrant les multiples facettes de la poésie médiévale et l’interaction des traditions érudites, populaires et courtoises. Le premier essai, "Waltharius-Gaïferos", tente de décrire les divers traitements de l’un des principaux thèmes héroïques européens selon des modes qui incluent: le lai et l’épique, la saga et la ballade et qui s’étendent sur une période allant de l’époque pré-carolingienne à la Renaissance. Suivent trois articles corrélatifs sur les adaptations médiévales des textes d’Ovide, ainsi qu’un groupe d’études voue à la lecture détaillée de la poésie lyrique médiévale. Après avoir considéré l’oeuvre de deux des plus passionnants poètes "goliards" et un certain nombre de remarquables compositions latines, sacrées et profanes, datant du 9e-12e siècles, Peter Dronke se tourne vers les pre