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Full Description
The twelfth-century Anglo-Norman verse Life of King Edward the Confessor is presented here in modern English for the first time, and with a full introduction and notes. Its author, an anonymous Nun of Barking Abbey, offers a many-faceted and absorbing portrait of the celebrated king and saint, together with legendary material found in no other version of this hagiographic narrative.
There is also a wealth of detail about Edward's times as well as about the twelfth-century context in which the Nun was writing, making the poem of great interest to historians as well as to literary scholars. This is among the earliest texts in French known to be by a woman, and so will also be of great value to scholars investigating medieval female authorship.
Long neglected, perhaps because mistakenly thought to be a mere translation of Aelred of Rievaulx's Vita in Latin, it proves to be remarkably independent of its main source and raises questions about the freedom and originality of medieval 'transposition' or translation.
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Introduction
Edward the Confessor
- La Vie d'Edouard
- The Three Principal Manuscripts
The Poem's Themes
- Edward: Holy Warrior, Royal Saint
- Historical and Legendary Women
- Chaste Marriage
- The Nun as a Mystical Writer
- From Latin to Medieval French
Sources
- Earlier Lives of Edward
- Rewriting Aelred
- The Nun and English Literature
- Other Sources
- Barking Abbey's Books
The Nun and her World
- Barking Abbey
- The Poem's Date
- The Nun's Identity as Author of Edouard
- The Poem's Audience
- Later Lives of Edward
Translation and Presentation
The Life of Edward the Confessor
Appendix
Glossary
Bibliography
- Primary Texts
- Secondary Texts
Indexes
- Bible References
- Proper Names in Text
- General Index
