The twenty-eight essays in this handbook represent the best current thinking in the study of Latin language and literature in the Middle Ages. Contributing authors--both senior scholars and gifted younger thinkers among them--not only illuminate the field as traditionally defined but also offer fresh insights into broader questions of literary history, cultural interaction, world literature, and language in history and society. Their studies vividly illustrate the field's complexities on a wide range of topics, including canonicity, literary styles and genres, and the materiality of manuscript culture. At the same time, they suggest future possibilities for the necessarily provisional and open-ended work essential to the pursuit of medieval Latin studies. The overall approach of The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Latin Literature makes this volume an essential resource for students of the ancient world interested in the prolonged after-life of the classical period's cultural complexes, for medieval historians, for scholars of other medieval literary traditions, and for all those interested in delving more deeply into the fascinating more-than-millennium-long passage between the ancient Mediterranean world and what we consider modernity.

The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Latin Literature (Oxford Handbooks)

History

Hexter, Ralph

Townsend, David

Europe

Oxford University Press

The use of ordeals and sworn oaths to prove one's innocence invites trickery. The guilty trickster cannot influence the judgment of the divine powers, but he can?by disguise or by equivocation in wording the oath?create a presumption of innocence. Ralph Hexter surveys the varieties of such stories in a number of folk literatures and looks at the use of this motif in three important medieval story cycles, with special attention to the way Christian writers handled story material based on a pre-Christian act of truth.

Equivocal Oaths and Ordeals in Medieval Literature (LeBaron Russell Briggs Prize Honors Essays in English)

Reference

Harvard University Press

For those of us who know and love the incomparable Odyssey of Homer (and there are many), Dr. Hexter has created a valuable, detailed analysis, taking into account many of Homer's most fascinating subtleties.

A Guide to The Odyssey: A Commentary on the English Translation of Robert Fitzgerald

Vintage

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Hexter, Ralph. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Hexter, Ralph