Structure and Imagery in Ancrene Wisse [Riwle] [Rule for Anchoresses]

vi, 243 pp. "Ancrene Wisse or Ancrene Riwle, the Rule for Anchoresses, is generally regarded as the most important prose work surviving in Middle English. The significance of the Rule as a work of art and a spiritual guide has long been recognized, but the artistic craftsmanship of the anonymous author has never before been analyzed in depth. The book traces the place of the document in early English mystical tradition, emphasizing the preeminence of the Rule in early Middle English prose literature as a conscious work of literary artistry. Professor Grayson presents a tightly constructed analysis of this vigorous and delightful thirteenth-century work, showing the threads of imagery which unite its parts. She studies the development of the author's argument and traces his movement of intricately linked analogies and images toward a mystical home in Love or Christ. The Rule is seen as a symbol of the progress of the communicant or medieval recluse from a knowledge of sin to the Eucharistic Feast."