Serious Entertainments: The Writing of History in Twelfth-Century England

University of Chicago Press, 1977-06-01. Hardcover. Good/Good. University of Chicago Press [Published Date: 1977]. Hardcover, 289 pp. First Edition. Good in good dust jacket. Red textured Paper over Boards with gold lettering on spine. Covers have chipping to the paper over the top and bottom edges. Binding tight. Pages clean and unmarked. Dust jacket has a few small nicks and tears and light creasing along edges. Moderate fading to spine and top corner of dust jacket as well. Now in an archival-quality (removable) Brodart Cover. NOT Ex-Library. NO remainder marks. [From jacket flaps] English historical literature of the twelfth century offers great variety and fascinating authorial idiosyncracies. Not intended to be objective, dispassionate, or disinterested, history was a genre of literature which enjoyed, and sometimes abused, all the liberties of fiction. At its best; this writing aspired to the detailed richness of contemporary narrative epic and romance, although built (as its authors would always assert) on a ground of sober fact. History in the high style was expected at once to divert and to edify. With verve, elegance, and empathy, Nancy F. Partner investigates the diversity of subjects, leisurely digressive avenues, and open possibilities of interpretation that characterize this literature. Examining in depth the work of Henry of Huntingdon (who wrote from 1125 to 1154), William of Newburgh, and Richard of Devizes (who both wrote around 1200), Partner considers their writing as a window which can reveal a vivid and rewarding view of the twelfth century. Each writer was an ecclesiastic by profession, intellectual and literary in his education and tastes, and each wrote a history of England at the request of a friend or patron. Partner explores the particular outlines and substance of each man's work and delineates his mind and personality as clearly as the sources permit. As she draws together the threads of her investigation. Partner discusses historical evidence, literary form, and the Christian exegesis of history in the context of the larger traditions and preoccupations of life in twelfth-century England. Serious Entertainments shows how the disconcerting fullness of these histories, with their heroically inflated scenes/ gossip of dubious provenance, tales of unseen exotic places, and marvels and miracles intertwined with sober fact disclose some very real truths about life in medieval society.