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Acknowledgments It is a pleasure to thank my teachers, colleagues, and friends for their stringent criticisms and enormous generosities during the bliss and blunder of this book. Lee Patterson has broadened the terrains of medieval literature and culture more ways than I can tell; with care, kindness, and staunch criticism he helped immeasurably in giving the argument whatever coherence it possesses. Sarah Beckwith was unfailing in her precise comments and abundant support, modeling a rare and contagious delight in scholarship . Special thanks and possibly a medal are due Larry Scanlon, who heroically read the seventh version of the introduction while also juggling four job searches, an MIA paper, and a change of residence. Affection and thanks are given to Emily Bartels, for criticism, support, and inimitable schmoozing; Susan Crane for sharing her expertise in romance, heraldry, and aristocratic display; Elin Diamond and the Rutgers Drama group for arguing wonderfully about modern performance theory and medieval drama; and Tom Hahn, Ralph Hanna, Sylvia Tomasch, Sealy Gilles, Michael Cornett, Stacy Klein, Daphne Lamothe, Peter Travis, Regina Schwartz, Scott McEathron, Anne Chandler, and Mark Amos for comments and feedback at crucial stages along the way. I thank all the friends and colleagues who gave advice and support but especially Kathryn West, Carroll Rilles, Ethan Knapp, Patricia DeMarco, Wesley Brown, and the New York Meds and I am grateful to the Rutgers University English Department for a sabbatical crucial to the revision of the manuscript. I thank Jerome Singerman at the University of Pennsylvania Press for his kind support, and the two anonymous readers for their sagacity as they played good cop and bad cop to the manuscript, pressed it to confess itselfmore clearly, and then generously let it go. Lastly but most profoundly, I thank my parents, whose bemused support of a daughter who decided to pursue a career not only in English but in medieval literature is itself a testament to generosity and love. ...

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