{"product_id":"john-trevisas-information-age-knowledge-and-the-pursuit-of-literature-c-1400-hardcover","title":"John Trevisa's Information Age: Knowledge and the Pursuit of Literature, C. 1400 - Hardcover","description":"\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eEmily Steiner\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat would medieval English literature look like if we viewed it through the lens of the compendium? In that case, John Trevisa might come into focus as the major author of the fourteenth century. Trevisa (d. 1402) made a career of translating big informational texts from Latin into English prose. These included Ranulph Higden's \u003cem\u003ePolychronicon\u003c\/em\u003e, an enormous universal history, Bartholomaeus Anglicus's well-known natural encyclopedia \u003cem\u003eDe proprietatibus rerum\u003c\/em\u003e, and Giles of Rome's advice-for-princes manual, \u003cem\u003eDe regimine principum\u003c\/em\u003e. These were shrewd choices, accessible and on trend: \u003cem\u003eDe proprietatibus rerum\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eDe regimine principum\u003c\/em\u003e had already been translated into French and copied in deluxe manuscripts for the French and English nobility, and the \u003cem\u003ePolychronicon\u003c\/em\u003e had been circulating England for several decades. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThis book argues that John Trevisa's translations of compendious informational texts disclose an alternative literary history by way of information culture. Bold and lively experiments, these translations were a gamble that the future of literature in England was informational prose. This book argues that Trevisa's oeuvre reveals an alternative literary history more culturally expansive and more generically diverse than that which we typically construct for his contemporaries, Geoffrey Chaucer and William Langland. Thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century European writers compiled massive reference books which would shape knowledge well into the Renaissance. This study maintains that they had a major impact on English poetry and prose. In fact, what we now recognize to be literary properties emerged in part from translations of medieval compendia with their inventive ways of handling vast quantities of information. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEmily Steiner, \u003cem\u003eProfessor, Department of English, University of Pennsylvania\u003c\/em\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eEmily Steiner is Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania. She received her BA from Brown University and her PhD from Yale University. She is author of \u003cem\u003eDocumentary Culture and the Making of Medieval English Literature\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eReading Piers Plowman.\u003c\/em\u003e She has also co-edited \u003cem\u003eThe Letter of the Law: Legal Practice and Literary Production in Medieval England\u003c\/em\u003e, with Candace Barrington; \u003cem\u003eTaxonomies of Knowledge: Information and Order in Medieval Manuscripts\u003c\/em\u003e, with Lynn Ransom; and \u003cem\u003eThe Cambridge History of History Writing: England and Britain, 500-1500\u003c\/em\u003e with Jennifer Jahner and Elizabeth Tyler. She is Director of the International Piers Plowman Society.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 304\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.9 x 6.6 x 9.5 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e October 20, 2021\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Books by splitShops","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42728239267903,"sku":"9780192896902","price":179.55,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0105\/8226\/1823\/files\/55e774e340e566fbcd6be1d65ba24ce3.webp?v=1765117763","url":"https:\/\/dhl-adrianne.myshopify.com\/products\/john-trevisas-information-age-knowledge-and-the-pursuit-of-literature-c-1400-hardcover","provider":"BBB","version":"1.0","type":"link"}