WRITING AUTHORITY IN LATE MEDIEVAL ... - Cornell University

own right, at least in Portugal, because to some extent it could portray its concern with writing
distinctly from the presentation of its ideas, because it distinguished meaning from
representation. This is why the Portuguese translators used the Confessio’s Latin frame without
translating it. They understood that “Cristes truth,” as the Confessio was read to portray it, was
derived from the inter-relationship of two distinct literary projects and could not simply be
represented across languages or even from ideas to writing with ease without changing. Thus, the
Portuguese translators used the Confessio’s Latin frame only in so far as it confirmed the logic
present in Gower’s English—a textual logic that did not simply wish to narrate “authorial” truth
but which also sought to imbue the process of narration with its own authority.
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