And God seith...': representations of divine speech and personal relationship to God in Middle English literature

Abstract

This thesis aims to analyse the diegetic representation of divine discourse, in particular, the reported speech of God in Middle English literature. It focuses on the narratorial stance of key texts towards such representations of divine speech, critically reflecting on the role that the points-of-view of both the embedded narrator and - more subtly - the implied author play in the mediation of such speech; furthermore, the operations of such speech are analysed to ascertain their purpose in relation to the 'sentence' of the whole text. The major finding of the thesis is that divine speech is presented, implicitly and explicitly, as the central medium by which God establishes and maintains His friendship with man.