Intimate Estrangements: Talking about Love and the Self in Robert Glück’s Margery Kempe

Abstract

This article addresses the adaptation of the medieval devotional work, The Book of Margery Kempe (1438), in Robert Glück’s New Narrative novel Margery Kempe (1994). Speaking as the character “Bob”, Glück retells Margery’s mystical experiences and desires in a blend of modern prose, Middle English, and Medieval Latin. I argue that this mixed form fosters an intimate but disruptive reading experience that estranges Kempe’s medieval world from modern readers; in turn, Glück poses the limits of talking about love and the self in writing. I begin by tracing the formal choices made in Barry Windeatt’s modern English translation of Kempe’s Book that Glück used, before describing the mixing of historical and modern languages in his retelling of Kempe’s life. I conclude that the recent republication of Glück’s novel (2020) proves its continued relevance, as it raises the queer possibilities of translation and adaptation for us today.