Robert Thornton

The Prose Alexander of Robert Thornton: The Middle English Text with a Modern English Translation - American University Studies Series 4: English Language and Literature

Medieval scribes often treated the works that they copied as «living works» which could not be ascribed to a single author and were, therefore, static. These scribal editors appropriated and, in rewriting, dismembered the original textual body. They reshaped these texts in their own image. In an attempt to avoid the perpetuation of such 'Frankentexts,' Dr. Chappell's edition of Robert Thornton's prose Alexander regenerates the scribal artifact with little emendation, modernization, or other imposition on the manuscript text. At the same time, this edition offers an interpretation in the form of a Modern English translation so that Robert Thornton's text might be accessible to a more diverse audience.