Writing Aloud - Storytelling in Late Medieval England (Hardcover)

Between high culture and low culture, between oral traditions and written storytelling, between performance and manuscript, there lies not a clean boundary but a dynamic, productive region of mutual influence.

In this fascinating study, Nancy Bradbury presents a spectrum of medieval English romances that extends from the fragmentary remains of a predominantly oral tradition to a writerly work that proclaims its own place in the European tradition of canonical poetry. By focusing on works composed at the interface of oral and literary tradition, Bradbury tracks the movement of folkloric patterns from the shared culture of oral storytelling to the realm of elite literature.

Bradbury's grounding assumption is that English romances arise from a lively context of writing, reading aloud, memory, and limited improvisation in performance. Intricate networks of social and cultural meanings are inscribed in these tales, deriving from the storyteller's delivery, inherited materials, and performance circumstances. Thus elements of orality are deeply embedded in the written texts and inform their rhetoric, structure, and style.

Writing Aloud overturns a widespread critical view that oral transmission violates the integrity of written texts. Recognizing that most medieval English romances either reflect or imitate the conditions of oral performance, Bradbury skillfully demonstrates the importance of performance to their narrative art.