Book of Margery Kempe: A Norton Critical Edition

by Margery Kempe, Lynn Staley (Editor)

Overview

The text presented here remains as faithful to the original Middle English as possible, without sounding archaic.

Kempe's work is accompanied by an introduction, a map of medieval England, a Kempe lexicon, and explanatory annotations.

"Contexts" collects primary readings that illuminate The Book of Margery Kempe.  Included are excerpts from The Constitutions of Thomas Arundel, Meditations on the Life of Christ, The Shewings of Julian of Norwich, The Book of Saint Bride, and The Life of Marie d'Oignies by Jacques de Vitry.

"Criticism" includes nine varied interpretations of the autobiography, written by Clarissa W. Atkinson, Lynn Staley, Karma Lochrie, David Aers, Kathleen Ashley, Gail McMurray Gibson, Sarah Beckwith, Caroline Walker Bynum, and Nicholas Watson.

A Selected Bibliography is also included.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393976397
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	11/10/2000
Series:	Norton Critical Editions Series
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	328
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.80(d)
Age Range:	14 - 17 Years

About the Author

Lynn Staley is the Harrington and Shirley Drake Professor of the Humanities in the Department of English at Colgate University. She writes about medieval and early modern literature and culture. Her books include Languages of Power in the Age of Richard II (2006), The Island Garden: England’s Language of Nation from Gildas to Marvell (2012), and Following Chaucer: Offices of the Active Life (2020).

Editorial Reviews

...[A]n oral history of the religious life of an English woman...an account of the awakening of a spiritual love "fixed upon God"....[a book for] the student of history, especially church history, medieval Catholicism, and 14th-century England.
— Parabola

Fran Shaw