Engaging Words The Culture of Reading in the Later Middle Ages

Acts of reading appear everywhere in the late Middle Ages, from the margins of Books of Hours to self-portraits of authors in their studies. What relevance did this image have for the late medieval imagination? Engaging Words is an interdisciplinary study on the conception of reading in late medieval society. Beginning with an examination of the social conditions that produced a viable reading public, the book surveys popular tastes, the interrelationship between manuscript form and content, and the theory and poetry of late medieval authors. Drawing on images from late medieval culture, historical documents, and literary texts, Engaging Words shows how reading became a cultural metaphor that transformed the way the Western world thought about identity and social roles.

Laurel Amtower is Associate Professor of English at San Diego State University.