Mastering Aesop: Medieval Education, Chaucer, And His Followers

Mastering Aesop: Medieval Education, Chaucer, and His Followers

In this first study of a text from early childhood education that continued to exert its influence over major Middle English writers in their maturity, Edward Wheatley examines fable as a mode of discourse in its medieval curricular context and then discusses the ways in which it influenced the work of Chaucer, Lydgate, and Henryson. Book Description "This will be the magisterial treatment of an important element in high and later medieval pedagogy, which in turn is emerging as a key area of research for literary and cultural historians alike. . . . [The author] shows in lovely and complex detail just how a pedagogical tradition can produce quite directly some of the best works of art of an entire era."-Christopher Baswell, Barnard College and Columbia Graduate SchoolIn this first study of a text from early childhood education that continued to exert its influence over major Middle English writers in their maturity, Edward Wheatley examines fable as a mode of discourse in its medieval curricular context and then discusses the ways in which it influenced the work of Chaucer, Lydgate, and Henryson.Drawing on exhaustive study of over 100 manuscripts and several incunables of the fables, Wheatley traces the use of the standard medieval Latin fable collection across Europe, the constructions of Aesop that affected that use, and the scholastic commentaries that the collection inspired. He then describes how the medieval understanding of Latin curricular fable exerted its influence on both the matter and the art of Chaucer and on his followers.Beyond his considerable contribution to the study of Latin influence on major vernacular writers of the English Middle Ages, Wheatley illuminates the curricular tradition in which they were trained and affords insights into numerous problematical issues at the heart of medieval literary study, such as the theory of translation and the nature of genre, author, and text.?Edward Wheatley, associate professor of English at Hamilton College, is executive editor of Sources and Analogues of Chaucer? Canterbury Tales and the author of essays in Studies in the Age of Chaucer, Studies in Philology, and other publications.