Imagining and transmitting medieval literary authority: William Langland to Ezra Pound

Review

“This study considers the nature of medieval literary authority, and the ways in which it has been constructed in several important medieval and non-medieval texts and contexts. Most of the editorial and critical work with medieval manuscripts has operated under the assumption of a single, static, and non-historicized authority behind each text, but literary authority is always potentially diffuse. Works we currently know in more than one version receive the majority of attention here, because they show in a very tangible way the results of dynamic interaction among authors, audiences, and other agents of literary production and consumption.? Chapters treat Piers Plowman, CA (Gower “takes control over the physical and conceptual activities of literary production?), and LGW. The final chapter discusses the medievalism of Ezra Pound, “which serves as a striking example of medieval literary production taking on new form and new life in modernist poetry and criticism.? [JGN 20.1]