The poetics of the medium : aesthetic forms and technologies of the word in the English Middle Ages

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-COLUMBIA AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] This dissertation argues that we can understand poetic form in the Middle Ages as language that interacts with its medium. The communication technologies of medieval English culture such as codex, oral tradition, epigraphy, printed book, and dramatic performance not only transmit early English poetry but supply symbolic forms that shape it as well. Approaching poetics through the medium allows original insights into several paradigmatic works of the English Middle Ages such as C[superscript ae]dmon's Hymn, the Old English Exeter Book Riddles, the Middle English Corpus Christi plays, and Malory's Morte Darthur. This study reveals the way the distinctive poetics of each of these works is formed in response to its own communication technology, appropriating from it patterns of audience relation, temporality, materiality, and social function. By means of this wide-angle approach--which incorporates media theory, oral tradition, and aesthetics--I reconceive literary history as the history of the relationship between language and technology. This thesis is developed over four chapters, each a case study examining the relationship between a poetic form and its verbal medium, moving from oral tradition, epigraphy, dramatic performance, and finally print. In each chapter I identify a key poetic feature and interpret it through the lens of the medium.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph. D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English (MU)

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Missouri--Columbia

Year dc:date.issued

2012

Author dc:creator

• Ramey, Peter A.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Foley, John Miles

• medieval literature
• poetic form
• communication technology

Statement dc:rights

• Access to files is limited to the University of Missouri--Columbia with SSO login.

Language dc:language.iso

eng, English

DOI

https://doi.org/10.32469/10355/15189

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:mospace.umsystem.edu:10355/15189