Description

Bernat Metge (c. 1347-1413) is best known for his masterwork , an autobiographical dream-vision cast as a prose dialog that stands as a testament to the breadth, depth, and lofty level of Catalan culture, plus its taste for politics and moral philosophy, during the late Middle Ages. Antonio Cortijo Ocaña’s and Elizabeth Lagresa’s notable English translation of the , or , offers a substantial introduction to the work just as it presents an eminently readable version of it aimed at an audience of both scholars and lay readers alike. The introduction by Cortijo Ocaña provides a substantial, comprehensive overview of Metge’s life and work, as well as a compact but authoritative introduction to itself. The English text is accompanied by some 200 explanatory annotations that enable both medievalists and generalists alike to become familiar with this important, major work of a major late medieval author. Most importantly, however, Cortijo Ocaña’s and Lagresa’s skillful translation provides a notable point of entry for the larger community of historians and literary scholars into the intellectual and social milieu of a lamentably neglected sector of medieval studies, humanism, Catalan literature and culture.