Animating the Letter - The Figurative Embodiment of Writing from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance (Hardcover)

In oral cultures, Kendrick (Universite de Versailles) points out, it is the living body in action, in the act of remembering that commands respect. In order for writing to usurp cultural authority from oral speech, she argues, writers in the Middle Ages had to animate the letters into the same degree of movement and grace. Thus scribes created animal and human bodies turning into or emerging into letters their limbs, eyes, ears, and tongues twisting and elongating themselves around the letters. Among the many illustrations are eight color plates.