1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910781622403321

Autore

Higgins Iain Macleod

Titolo

Writing East [[electronic resource] ] : the "travels" of Sir John Mandeville / / Iain Macleod Higgins

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Philadelphia, : University of Pennsylvania Press, c1997

ISBN

1-283-21172-6

9786613211729

0-8122-0226-0

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (348 p.)

Collana

The Middle Ages series

Disciplina

910.4

Soggetti

Travelers' writings, English - History and criticism

Geography, Medieval, in literature

Travel, Medieval

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. [301]-314) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- Abbreviations -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Here Begins the Book of John Mandeville, Knight -- 3. “Chases Estranges” in Constantinople and the Eastern Mediterranean -- 4. Marvels, Miracles, and Dreams of Re-Expansion in Egypt and the Holy Land -- 5. Earthly Symmetry and the Mirror of Marvelous Diversity in and Around Ynde -- 6. Faith and Power in the Great Khan's Cathay and Prester John's Land -- 7. Personal and Pagan Piety in the Direction of Paradise -- 8. Having Come to Rest Despite Myself -- 9. Conclusion -- Notes -- Work Cited -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

No work revealed more of the mysterious East to statesmen, explorers, readers, and writers of the late Middle Ages than the Book of John Mandeville. One of the most widely circulated documents of its day, it first appeared in French between 1356 and 1371 and was soon translated into nine other European languages. Ostensibly the account of one English knight's journeys through Africa and Asia, it is, rather, a compilation of travel writings first shaped by an unknown redactor.Writing East is a study of how Mandeville's Travels came to appear in its various versions, explaining how it went through a series of transformations as it reached new audiences in order to serve as both a



response to previous writings about the East and an important voice in the medieval conversation about the nature and limits of the world. Higgins offers a palimpsestic reading of this "multi-text" that demonstrates not only how the original French author overwrote his precursors but also how subsequent translators molded the material to serve their own ideological agendas.