Alastair Minnis


Alastair J. Minnis is a Northern Irish literary critic and historian of ideas who has written extensively about medieval literature, and contributed substantially to the study of late-medieval theology and philosophy. Having gained a first-class B.A. degree at the Queen's University of Belfast, he matriculated at Keble College, Oxford as a visiting graduate student, where he completed work on his Belfast Ph.D., having been mentored by M.B. Parkes and Beryl Smalley. Following appointments at the Queen's University of Belfast and Bristol University, he was appointed Professor of Medieval Literature at the University of York; also Director of the Centre for Medieval Studies and later Head of English & Related Literature. From 2003 to 2006, he was a Humanities Distinguished Professor at Ohio State University, Columbus, from where he moved to Yale University. In 2008, he was named Douglas Tracy Smith Professor of English at Yale.
Minnis is a Fellow of the English Association, a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America, and an Honorary Member of the Royal Irish Academy. From 2012 to 2014, he served as president of the New Chaucer Society. He was general editor of the Cambridge University Press series Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature from 1987 to 2018 and holds an honorary master's degree from Yale and an honorary doctorate from the University of York. The University of York also bestowed on him the honorific title of Emeritus Professor of Medieval Literature. He has long been involved in the activities of the John Gower Society and currently holds the post of vice president. In 2023, he received a festschrift edited by Andrew Kraebel, Ardis Butterfield, and Ian Johnson.

Selected publications

Major books and edited collections

Chaucer and Pagan Antiquity.Gower's Confessio amantis: Responses and Reassessments.Medieval Theory of Authorship: Scholastic Literary Attitudes in the Later Middle Ages.The Medieval Boethius: Studies in the Vernacular Translations of 'De Consolatione Philosophiae.
  • , Medieval Literary Theory and Criticism c.1100 c.1375: The Commentary Tradition.Latin and Vernacular: Studies in Late-Medieval Texts and Manuscripts, York Manuscripts Conferences: Proceedings Series, 1.Chaucer's Shorter Poems. .
  • , Essays on Ricardian Literature in Honour of J.A. Burrow.
  • , Medieval Theology and the Natural Body, York Studies in Medieval Theology I.
  • , Handling Sin: Confession in Late-Medieval Culture, York Studies in Medieval Theology II.
  • , The Sources of Chaucer's 'Boece.Magister Amoris: The 'Roman de la Rose' and Vernacular Hermeneutics.
  • , The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism, vol. 2: The Middle Ages.
  • , Text, Image, Interpretation: Studies in Anglo-Saxon Literature and its Insular Context in Honour of Éamonn Ó Carragáin.Fallible Authors: Chaucer's Pardoner and Wife of Bath.Translations of Authority in Medieval English Literature: Valuing the Vernacular.
  • , Medieval Holy Women in the Christian Tradition, –.
  • . Historians on Chaucer: The General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales.The Cambridge Introduction to Chaucer.From Eden to Eternity: Creations of Paradise in the Later Middle Ages.Hellish Imaginations from Augustine to Dante: An Essay in Metaphor and Materiality, Medium Ævum Monographs n.s. 37.Phantom Pains and Prosthetic Narratives: From George Dedlow to Dante, Cambridge Elements in Histories of Emotions and the Senses.

Contributions to books (since 2015)

  • "Unquiet Graves: Pearl and the Hope of Reunion", in Truth and Tales: Cultural Mobility and Medieval Media, ed. Nicholas Watson & Fiona Somerset, pp. 117–34.
  • "Discourse beyond death: The Language of Heaven in the Middle English Pearl", in Language in Medieval Britain: Networks and Exchanges, ed. by Mary Carruthers, Harlaxton Medieval Studies, 25, pp. 214–28.
  • "Reconciling amour and yconomique: Evrart de Conty's Ambition as Vernacular Commentator", in Traduire au XIVe siècle : Evrart de Conty et la vie intellectuelle à la cour de Charles V, ed. by Joëlle Ducos and Michèle Goyens, pp. 199–222.
  • "Other Worlds: Chaucer's Classicism", in The Oxford History of Classical Reception in English Literature, Volume 1: 800-1558, ed. by Rita Copeland, pp. 413–434.
  • "Figuring the letter: Making sense of sensus litteralis in late-medieval Christian Exegesis", in Interpreting Scriptures in Judaism, Christianity and Islam: Overlapping Inquiries, ed. Mordechai Z. Cohen and Adele Berlin, pp. 159–182.
  • "The Prick of Conscience and the Imagination of Paradise", in: Pursuing Middle English Manuscripts and their Texts. Essays in Honour of Ralph Hanna, edited by Simon Horobin and Aditi Nafde, pp. 127–40.
  • "Secularity", in Geoffrey Chaucer in Context, ed. by Ian Johnson, pp. 178–86, 453-54.

Periodical articles (since 2010)

  • "Image Trouble in Vernacular Commentary: The Vacillations of Francesco da Barberino", in Inventing a Path: Studies in Medieval Rhetoric in Honour of Mary Carruthers, ed. Laura Iseppi de Filippis; a special issue of Nottingham Medieval Studies, 56, 229-245.
  • "Chaucer Drinks What He Brews: The House of Fame, 1873-82", Notes and Queries, 16 April.
  • "The Restoration of All Things: John Bradford's Refutation of Aquinas on Animal Resurrection", The Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 45.2, pp. 323–42.
  • "Fragmentations of Medieval Religion: Thomas More, Chaucer, and the Volcano Lover", Studies in the Age of Chaucer, 37, pp. 3–27.
  • "Aggressive Chaucer: Of dolls, drink and Dante", The Medieval Translator, 16, 357-76. Edited by Pieter de Leemans and Michele Goyens.
  • "Bending Augustine's nose. Or How to Authorize Sexual Pleasure", The Medieval Journal, 8.2, 1–20.