Medieval Autographies: The “I” of the Text

Abstract

In A. C. Spearing develops a new engagement of narrative theory with medieval English first-person writing, focusing on roles functions of I as a shifting textual phenomenon, not to be defined either as autobiographical or as label of a fictional speaker or narrator. Spearing identifies explores a previously unrecognized category of medieval English poetry, calling it autography. He describes this form as emerging in mid-fourteenth century consisting of extended nonlyrical writings in first person, embracing prologues, authorial interventions in commentaries on third-person narratives, descendants of a genre of French medieval He argues that autography arose as a means of liberation from requirement to tell stories with preordained conclusions as a way of achieving a closer relation to lived experience, with all its unpredictability inconsistencies. Autographies, he claims, are marked by a cluster of characteristics including a correspondence to texture of life as it is experienced, a montage-like unpredictability of structure, a concern with writing textuality. Beginning with what may be earliest extended first-person narrative in Middle English, Winner Waster, book examines instances of the dit as discussed by French scholars, analyzes Chaucer s Wife of Bath s Prologue as a textual performance, devotes separate chapters to detailed readings of Hoccleve s Regement of Princes prologue, his Complaint Dialogue, witty first-person elements in Osbern Bokenham s legends of saints. An afterword suggests possible further applications of concept of autography, including discussion of intermittent autographic commentaries on narrative in Troilus Criseyde and Capgrave s Life of Saint Katherine. A deeply challenging engaging book, Autographies: The I of Text be required reading in every graduate course in medieval English literature. In wonderfully nuanced close readings of various late medieval texts, A. C. Spearing extends further theorizes his earlier groundbreaking work in Textual Subjectivity. His proposal of autography as a new way of conceptualizing medieval first-person writing should have profound bearing on how future scholars conceptualize, designate, discuss character, intent, voice. Peter W. Travis, Henry Winkley of Anglo-Saxon English Language Literature, Dartmouth College A.C. Spearing dares us to think without anachronistic notions, teaches us, by impressive example, how to become better readers of medieval French English poetry. Ad Putter, University of Bristol Professor Spearing proposes in this new study a nuanced persuasive theoretical framework for interpreting late medieval first-person narratives without anachronistic dependency on autobiography modern preoccupations with narrative coherency. Drawing on postmodern theory French scholarship on dit, Autographies promises to spark conversation that extends beyond Medieval English circle to include French medievalists who will find a worthy cross-disciplinary discussion initiated literary theorists who will discover a sorely understudied corpus whose relevance is made manifest. Deborah McGrady, University of Virginia