{"product_id":"the-place-of-thought-9780812240078","title":"The Place of Thought","description":"\u003cp\u003eFrom Jean de Meun in the late thirteenth century to Christine de Pizan in the early fifteenth, medieval French poets often aimed to impart theological, philosophical, or moral ideas. To unify their thought, and to make its outline visible to readers, the poets created vivid images of place, such as gardens, paths, idyllic landscapes, cities, trees, and fountains. For Sarah Kay, these spatial images are a prop of \"monologism,\" helping to communicate (or impose) unity of meaning and interpretation by summoning readers to occupy the same \"place\" in their thinking as the authors. Because of this monologism, Kay contends, didactic poetry has been ill served by a critical tradition that favors difference, plurality, and dialogism. In \u003ci\u003eThe Place of Thought\u003c\/i\u003e, she seeks radically to reassess this literature and reappraise the pleasure to be derived from reading it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKay argues that one meaning is not inherently simpler or less interesting than many meanings. Using specific works as examples, she demonstrates that this \"one-ness\" of thought in French didactic poems can be an excitingly complex and challenging notion, and that it strains the images in which it is placed to the point where they become difficult to visualize. Herein lies the poems' simultaneous intellectual and aesthetic appeal. Focusing on the \u003ci\u003eRoman de la Rose\u003c\/i\u003e by Jean de Meun, the \u003ci\u003eBreviari d'amor\u003c\/i\u003e by Matfre Ermengaud, the \u003ci\u003eOvide moralisé\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003ePèlerinage de vie humaine\u003c\/i\u003e by Guillaume de Deguileville's, \u003ci\u003eLe Jugement dou roy de Navarre\u003c\/i\u003e by Guillaume de Machaut, \u003ci\u003eLe Joli buisson de Jonece\u003c\/i\u003e by Jean Froissart, and \u003ci\u003eLe Livre du Chemin de long estude\u003c\/i\u003e by Christine de Pizan, Kay traces the works' backgrounds in scholastic thinking, illuminating them when appropriate with modern reflections on the same ideas.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Sarah Kay","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48177524932859,"sku":"9780812240078","price":69.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/indiepubs.com\/products\/the-place-of-thought-9780812240078","provider":"IndiePubs","version":"1.0","type":"link"}