Medieval Literary Voices: Embodiment, Materiality and Performance, ed. Louise D’Arcens and Sif Ríkharðsdóttir. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2022, 298 pp.

Abstract

As indicated by the title of the book, this volume presents a variety of definitions of and approaches toward the concept of voice in medieval literature, with greatest but not exclusive focus on medieval English literature. The volume’s Introduction gives a useful overview of the numerous debates and sub-themes affiliated with the concept of voice in Medieval Studies. These include the link between voice and humanity, spirituality and textuality that has been promoted since antiquity and throughout the Middle Ages; the polyphony and multiplicity of voices available in literature; voice, gender and identity; voice and performativity, and thus authority; inner voices from the divine or the past; articulate and inarticulate voices; voice and music; silence and pauses as integral part of voice; externalized voices in the manuscripts; vox between orality and textuality. The editors, Louise D’Arcens and Sif Ríkharðsdóttir, state that the book does not aim to “foster an inclusive and explanatory range of perspectives” (8), but that it rather spans widely and freely from Augustine, Aristotle and Boethius, through several medieval traditions, to early modern voice-actualizations, and uses voice as a critical concept to discuss topic as selfhood, embodiment, and authority.