The Art of Allusion

"Sonja Drimmer's book is a remarkable work of discovery and synthesis, the product of original archival work conducted over a decade. Her scholarship combines the techniques of the art historian (visual analysis and comparison, careful observation) and the literary scholar (she analyses the Middle English adeptly) . . . [T]his book will be timeless . . . [R]ead it, for the ideas, for the thrill of exploring archives with such an able guide, and also for the pleasure of the language."—English Historical Review

"Written with verve and energy, Sonja Drimmer's new book is an excellent contribution to a vital, discipline-wide conversation about the importance of visual images in late medieval manuscripts . . . Drimmer's training in visual traditions is matched by her commitment to engaging both the literature of late medieval England and its scholarship. Our disciplines need practitioners who assiduously strive not to theorize the primacy of either words or images. Drimmer is to be congratulated for bringing her discipline's insights and methods right into the core of late medieval literary production in a book that will generate ideas for scholars working in a wide range of fields."—Studies in the Age of Chaucer

"[B]eautiful . . . In elegant prose, Sonja Drimmer treats such phenomena as authorial portraits, illuminators' engagements with the text, and the re-use of a single volume over time, leaving no doubt about the sophistication of medieval limners and the scholarly imperative to attend carefully to their work . . . This astounding book demonstrates, in large part because of the efforts of their illuminators, chief among whom is Drimmer herself, that these manuscripts of Gower and Lydgate ought now to make up a new English canon."—Speculum

"This is a complex and intellectually stimulating book, restless with ideas and extending its reach into more corners of manuscript studies than most scholars would feel qualified to take on in one effort . . . Drimmer's book is commendably courageous in taking seriously a division of English medieval art that has been broadly neglected, and highly refreshing in its push back against the dominant assumptions that art-and particularly illumnination-was historically and contextually conditioned . . . [F]rom any angle the book surely represents an important advance on existing ideas, and where the history fifteenth-century illumination is concerned, it may well prove to be a game-changer."—Journal of the Early Book Society

"In her provocative and stimulating The Art of Allusion, Sonja Drimmer argues for the significance of manuscript illuminators as dynamic participants in the spread and interpretation of the vernacular English literature in the fifteenth century. Specifically, Drimmer offers the first book-length study to consider the 'emergence of England's literary canon as a visual and linguistic event' . . . This lively and engaging study is beautifully produced and illustrated. Drimmer's style is accessible and thoughtful . . . Drimmer is to be highly commended for this fresh appraisal of the work of the fifteenth-century illuminators."—Journal of British Studies

"Sonja Drimmer's The Art of Allusion is a welcome addition to the field of late-medieval English manuscript studies. Ambitious, well-organized, cogently argued, it both energizes and revises earlier scholarly approaches to its subject . . . Her book is a thorough art historical study that manages a feat of noteworthy interdisciplinarity through its marriage with textual studies."—The Medieval Review

"An excellent book, truly groundbreaking in approach, and an important contribution to the understanding of late medieval English literary manuscripts, their production, and their illustration."—Richard K. Emmerson, Florida State University

"The Art of Allusion is full of new and fascinating insights. Sonja Drimmer convincingly argues that the work of illustration both responds and contributes to the entry and circulation of new ideas about English vernacular literary authorship, political history, and book production itself in the fifteenth century."—Alexandra Gillespie, University of Toronto