Introduction: Critical Theory and the Study of the Middle Ages

Author / Editor
Finke, Laurie A.,and Martin B. Shichtman.

Title
Introduction: Critical Theory and the Study of the Middle Ages

Published
Laurie A. Finke and Martin B. Shichtman, eds. Medieval Texts and Contemporary Readers (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1987), pp. 1-11.

Description
Summarizes through Kaske (defender of patristic exegesis) and Donaldson (opposer) the debate in the 1950's and 1960s over textual meaning. In the 1970s, medievalists underplayed historical differences between their work and medieval texts. In the 1980s, "We have begun to examine how medieval studies...mediate between what has survived of medieval culture and its reception in the twentieth century."

Contributor
Shichtman, Martin B.

Alternative Title
Medieval Texts and Contemporary Readers.

Chaucer Subjects
Background and General Criticism.