Cambridge Medieval Classics – serie

The autobiographical poems of Gregory of Nazianzus, fourth-century Father of the Greek church, are remarkable not only for a highly individual picture of the Byzantine world but also for moments that are intimate, passionate, and moving. The book contains Greek text and facing English translation of a selection from his one hundred or so surviving poems. Gregory is best known for the five orations he gave in Constantinople but, De Vita Sua apart, his poems can only be read in a nineteenth-century Greek edition and have never before been translated into English. The selected poems highlight Gregory's spiritual outlook and also his poetics; Gregory shows his expertise in a variety of metres and literary dialects, deriving from his knowledge of classical Greek literature. The substantial introduction provides biographical information against which to set the poems, focusing particularly on the years which Gregory spent in Constantinople.

Adelard of Bath was one of the most colourful personalities of the Middle Ages. He travelled to the Crusader kingdoms, to Sicily and south Italy, and translated texts on astronomy, astrology and magic from Arabic into Latin. He acquired a lasting reputation as a pioneering mathematician, and he was a gifted teacher. He addressed one of these works, on cosmology and the astrolabe, to the future King Henry II, and it is in the context of the education of the nobility that the three works edited in this book are to be viewed. Adelard meant them to be both entertaining and instructive. They deal with all kinds of topics, from the nature of the soul to the cause of earthquakes, from the effects of music to how to train a hawk. A preface provides the results of research on Adelard's life and work.

Digenis Akritis is Byzantium's only epic poem, telling of the exploits of a heroic warrior of 'double descent' on the frontiers between Byzantine and Arab territory in Asia Minor in the ninth and tenth centuries. It survives in six versions, of which the two oldest, dating from the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, are presented here in an edited version. The manuscripts are preserved in the Grottaferrata monastery near Rome and the Escorial Library in Spain. Behind these two versions lies a twelfth-century poem that can now be glimpsed at but not reconstructed. This edition and translation aims at highlighting the nature of the lost poem, and at providing a guide through the maze of recent discussions about the epic and its background.

Renowned poet Fleur Adcock here provides modern verse translations of the complete work of two of the most exciting poets of the twelfth century, Hugh Primas of Orleans and the so-called Archpoet, beside their Latin originals. Included are witty epigrams, treatments of classical themes, poems on religious and ecclesiastical topics, depictions of low life, begging-poems, and the Archpoet's famous Confession. The work is characterised by its liveliness and its touches of satire and coarse realism, features which Fleur Adcock captures superbly in her modern renderings. There are textual notes, explanatory notes, a historical note, and an introduction. This unique resource will appeal not only to medievalists but to all lovers of poetry.

Renowned poet Fleur Adcock here provides modern verse translations of the complete work of two of the most exciting poets of the twelfth century, Hugh Primas of Orleans and the so-called Archpoet, beside their Latin originals. Included are witty epigrams, treatments of classical themes, poems on religious and ecclesiastical topics, depictions of low life, begging-poems, and the Archpoet's famous Confession. The work is characterised by its liveliness and its touches of satire and coarse realism, features which Fleur Adcock captures superbly in her modern renderings. There are textual notes, explanatory notes, a historical note, and an introduction. This unique resource will appeal not only to medievalists but to all lovers of poetry.

The Liber Manualis is a distinctive guidebook to conduct and survival in tumultuous times written by a Carolingian mother for her adolescent son. This edition provides a complete translation in English, accompanied by the Latin original. Advancing views of Dhuoda's individuality and mindset, her possible models and intended readership, the introduction places her handbook within the context of French and Germanic literary traditions. Explanatory references illuminate the life and work of this remarkable and well-educated ninth-century woman. Often called the first Western treatise of childhood education, the Liber Manualis forefronts the name and voice of a courageous mother, whose moral position remains unique in a patriarchal society.

Adelard of Bath was one of the most colourful personalities of the Middle Ages. He travelled to the Crusader kingdoms, to Sicily and south Italy, and translated texts on astronomy, astrology and magic from Arabic into Latin. He acquired a lasting reputation as a pioneering mathematician, and he was a gifted teacher. He addressed one of these works, on cosmology and the astrolabe, to the future King Henry II, and it is in the context of the education of the nobility that the three works edited in this book are to be viewed. Adelard meant them to be both entertaining and instructive. They deal with all kinds of topics, from the nature of the soul to the cause of earthquakes, from the effects of music to how to train a hawk. A preface provides the results of research on Adelard's life and work.

Digenis Akritis is Byzantium's only epic poem, telling of the exploits of a heroic warrior of 'double descent' on the frontiers between Byzantine and Arab territory in Asia Minor in the ninth and tenth centuries. It survives in six versions, of which the two oldest, dating from the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, are presented here in an edited version. The manuscripts are preserved in the Grottaferrata monastery near Rome and the Escorial Library in Spain. Behind these two versions lies a twelfth-century poem that can now be glimpsed at but not reconstructed. This edition and translation aims at highlighting the nature of the lost poem, and at providing a guide through the maze of recent discussions about the epic and its background.

The Liber Manualis is a distinctive guidebook to conduct and survival in tumultuous times written by a Carolingian mother for her adolescent son. This edition provides a complete translation in English, accompanied by the Latin original. Advancing views of Dhuoda's individuality and mindset, her possible models and intended readership, the introduction places her handbook within the context of French and Germanic literary traditions. Explanatory references illuminate the life and work of this remarkable and well-educated ninth-century woman. Often called the first Western treatise of childhood education, the Liber Manualis forefronts the name and voice of a courageous mother, whose moral position remains unique in a patriarchal society.

De vulgari eloquentia, written by Dante in the early years of the fourteenth century, is the only known work of medieval literary theory to have been produced by a practising poet, and the first to assert the intrinsic superiority of living, vernacular languages over Latin. Its opening consideration of language as a sign-system includes foreshadowings of twentieth-century semiotics, and later sections contain the first serious effort at literary criticism based on close analytical reading since the classical era. Steven Botterill here offers an accurate Latin text and a readable English translation of the treatise, together with notes and introductory material, thus making available a work which is relevant not only to Dante's poetry and the history of Italian literature, but to our whole understanding of late medieval poetics, linguistics, and literary practice.

The Architrenius is a vivacious and influential Latin satirical poem in nine books dating from 1184. It describes the journey of a young man (the 'Arch-Weeper') on the threshold of maturity, confronting the ills of the church, the court, and the schools of late twelfth-century Europe. Dramatising the human tendency towards vice and the vanity of worldly things, the poem is full of social commentary and flights of brilliant description. There are characteristic scenes in which a desire that combines prurience with frank sexuality is set against a quasi-religious idealism. The directness with which the poem engages social and psychological problems anticipates the work of the great vernacular writers Boccaccio and Chaucer. Winthrop Wetherbee's prose translation is presented alongside the original Latin, and augmented by an introduction and extensive notes.

The Architrenius is a vivacious and influential Latin satirical poem in nine books dating from 1184. It describes the journey of a young man (the 'Arch-Weeper') on the threshold of maturity, confronting the ills of the church, the court, and the schools of late twelfth-century Europe. Dramatising the human tendency towards vice and the vanity of worldly things, the poem is full of social commentary and flights of brilliant description. There are characteristic scenes in which a desire that combines prurience with frank sexuality is set against a quasi-religious idealism. The directness with which the poem engages social and psychological problems anticipates the work of the great vernacular writers Boccaccio and Chaucer. Winthrop Wetherbee's prose translation is presented alongside the original Latin, and augmented by an introduction and extensive notes.

De vulgari eloquentia, written by Dante in the early years of the fourteenth century, is the only known work of medieval literary theory to have been produced by a practising poet, and the first to assert the intrinsic superiority of living, vernacular languages over Latin. Its opening consideration of language as a sign-system includes foreshadowings of twentieth-century semiotics, and later sections contain the first serious effort at literary criticism based on close analytical reading since the classical era. Steven Botterill here offers an accurate Latin text and a readable English translation of the treatise, together with notes and introductory material, thus making available a work which is relevant not only to Dante's poetry and the history of Italian literature, but to our whole understanding of late medieval poetics, linguistics, and literary practice.

The autobiographical poems of Gregory of Nazianzus, fourth-century Father of the Greek church, are remarkable not only for a highly individual picture of the Byzantine world but also for moments that are intimate, passionate, and moving. The book contains Greek text and facing English translation of a selection from his one hundred or so surviving poems. Gregory is best known for the five orations he gave in Constantinople but, De Vita Sua apart, his poems can only be read in a nineteenth-century Greek edition and have never before been translated into English. The selected poems highlight Gregory's spiritual outlook and also his poetics; Gregory shows his expertise in a variety of metres and literary dialects, deriving from his knowledge of classical Greek literature. The substantial introduction provides biographical information against which to set the poems, focusing particularly on the years which Gregory spent in Constantinople.