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Acknowledpents I am grateful to my colleagues at the University of Hawaii who inspired me to pursue this project in its initial stages, particularly Nell Altizer, Kathleen Falvev, Jay Kastelv, and Judith Kellogg. Many scholars have contributed to this e.ffort with rheir knowledge, suggestions, and comments, including Gail McMurray Gibson, Margot H. King, Valerie Lagorio, Clare A. Lees, and Gillian R. Overing. I am particularly indebted to Allen J. Frantzen at Loyola University of Chicago for his encouragement and support of my research and for his generous readings of this manuscript. Others who read all or part of the manuscript, including Elizabeth Robertson and Willenlien Otten, are deserving of my gratitude. For help in preparing the manuscript, I thank Gordon Sellers, who assisted with proofreading and compiling of the index, and M a n Dye, who transfered a draft of the manuscript to a new computer system. I wish to thank the National Endowment for the Humanities for a Summer Stipend, and Loyola Universiq of Chicago and the University of Hawaii for their grant support. At the University of Pennsvl~~ania Press, I am indebted to my editor, Jerome E. Singerman, for his direction and encouragement, and to Alison Anderson, for her guidance through the final stages of the book. I am also grateful for the assistanceof the librarians at Trinity College, Cambridge, and for the enthusiasm and camaraderie of the medievalists at the Newberry Libran in Chicago. Part of Chapter I originally appeared in "The Language of Transgression : Bodv, Flesh, and Word in Mvstical Discourse," in Speaking Two ~an~uages: Trnditional Disc+lines aid Contempora~y The09 in Medieval Studies,ed. Allen J. Frantzen (Albanv: State University of New York Press, 1991).Portions of Chapter 3 appeared in "TheBook ofMargery Icempe: the Marginal Woman's Quest for Literary Authority," Journal ofMedieval and RenazssanceStudies 16 (1986):33-56. Chapter 4 began as a conference paper which was subsequently published, "Margery Kempe and the Rhetoric of Laughter," VoxBenedictina 3 (1986).I thank the publishers of these journals and the essay collection for permission to reprint this material in revised form. I also thank the Coancil of the Early English Text Society for viii Acknowledgme~lts pern~ission to quote from Sanford B. Meech and Hope Emilv Allen, The Book ofMargeryIcenzpe, EETS, o.s. 212 (1940; rpt. 1961). Finally, I would like to give special thanks to Huma Ibrahim, whose friendship and intellectual vitality have benefited me immeasurably. To my parents, I will always o\ve a debt of thanks for their continued support. ...

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