The Art of Allusion: Illuminators and the Making of English Literature, 1403-1476

During the 14th and 15th centuries, Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower, and John Lydgate translated and revised stories with long pedigrees in Latin, Italian, and French. Manuscript illuminators are seldom discussed in the major narratives of the development of English literary culture, but they played a crucial role in creating new images to accompany narratives that often had no tradition of illustration. The Art of Allusion is the first book devoted to the emergence of England's literary canon as a visual as well as a linguistic event.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 352 pages
Publication date: 04 June 2021
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

In the late 14th and early 15th centuries, Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower, and John Lydgate undertook the translation and revision of stories with rich histories in Latin, Italian, and French. These works, commissioned by both royals and gentry, were lavishly reproduced in manuscript copies, with images playing a crucial role in elevating the status of English as a literary language. However, despite the significance of these images, manuscript illuminators are often overlooked in the broader narratives of English literary culture's development. The increased scale of English manuscript production created a pressing need for new visual representations. Not only did these images need to accompany narratives that often lacked an illustrative tradition, but they also had to convey innovative concepts, such as the identity and appropriate representation of an English poet. To address this challenge, manuscript artists employed visual allusion as a means to articulate fundamental questions and offer conflicting answers regarding literary and cultural authority. Sonja Drimmer explores how, similarly to poets embracing intertextuality as a creative tool, illuminators devised new images through referential techniques. They assembled, adapted, and combined images from various sources to fulfill the demand for a fresh body of pictorial matter. The Art of Allusion, featuring over one hundred illustrations, including twenty-seven in color, is the first book dedicated to the emergence of England's literary canon as a visual and linguistic phenomenon.

Weight: 818g
Dimension: 174 x 248 x 19 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780812224849