Minnis A., Johnson I. (eds.) The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism. Vol. II. The Middle Ages

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. — xvi p. + 865 p.This is a history of the literary theory and criticism produced during the Middle Ages that covers all the main traditions in Latin, the major European vernaculars, and Byzantine Greek. Starting with the study of grammar and the formal 'arts' of poetry, letter-writing and preaching, it proceeds to offer a full description of the Latin commentary tradition on classical and classicizing literature, followed by explanations of medieval views on literary imagination and memory, and the ways in which certain texts were believed to achieve moral profit through pleasure. Subsequent essays explore the diverse theoretical and critical traditions which developed in the vernacular languages, ranging from Medieval Irish to Old Norse, Occitan to Middle High German, concentrating particularly on Dante and his commentators and Italian humanist criticism. The volume concludes with an examination of the attitudes to literature and its uses in Greek Byzantium.The Liberal Arts and the Arts of Latin Textuality
The Study of Classical Authors
Textual psychologies: imagination, memory, pleasure
Vernacular critical traditions: the early Middle Ages
Vernacular critical traditions: the late Middle Ages
Latin and vernacular in Italian literary theory
Byzantine literary theory and criticismVolume II
Volume III
Volume IV
Volume V
Volume VI
Volume VII
Volume VIII
Volume IX