Product Description

In keeping with the other Norton Critical Editions, the text of "The Book of Margery Kempe" has not been modernized and the translation adheres closely to Middle English. The text is accompanied by an introduction, a map of medieval England, a Kempe lexicon and explanatory annotations. This edition includes primary sources to elucidate late medieval religious authority, mysticism and expressions of worship as well as nine interpretative essays and a selected bibliography. Book of Margery Kempe"

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #298304 in Books
• Published on: 2001-01-24
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 328 pages

Customer Reviews

Not just for medievalists.
This is a modern rendering of the earliest surviving autobiographical writing in English. Kempe lived in Lynn, Norfolk, in the late fourteenth-century. She was the daughter of a five-times mayor, a wife, mother of fourteen children and a self-confessed failed business woman. Although famed for the exuberance of her religious experiences, the book also reveals incidental details about Kempe's marriage, work and daily life.

The first autobiography in English
This is the first autobiography in English. It was written in 1436, lost for centuries, rediscovered 1934, and is here translated for the first time from Middle English into fully comprehensible modern language. In it Margery Kempe describes her `madness, financial ruin, religious ecstasies, marital problems and dangerous treks to distant shrines' over a period of 40 years. Strong stuff.
Margery Kempe was married, and had 14 children. She lived in Norfolk in the 14th century. After becoming a visionary and mystic she went on pilgrimages, preached, and was tried. Her `special talent', for which she was both revered and castigated, was the way in which she responded to her visions -- visions such as these:

In chapter 36, God deifies and marries Margery, inviting her to kiss him, embrace him and take him to bed' - a graphically described scene. In chapter 81, she has a vision of the crucifixion and subsequent events: `A little later, I thought I saw our Lady walking towards her home ... Once our Lady was home and resting on her bed it occurred to me to make her a nice hot drink, but when I took it to her she told me to throw it away'.