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Preface Reading Dido is a study of the reception and revision of the figure of Dido as she emerges from ancient texts and circulates in medieval textual cultures . This study also records my reception of cultural theory and my revision of my earlier work. Most notably, Reading Dido marks a revisionary departure from my dissertation on Virgil's Aeneid in medieval French and English literature (Berkeley, 1985). In the course of writing my dissertation, my research on the vernacular reception of the Aeneid brought me back again and again to Dido and to Aeneid 4. However, it was not until I had begun to teach women's studies courses in medieval literature at Binghamton that I began to work closely with feminist theory in such a way that I could formulate the critical categories for my scholarly awareness of Dido's centrality to medieval vernacular reworkings of Virgil. From that point on, I have been engaged in the sort of critical inventio necessary to present a coherent (butby no means exhaustive) study of the medieval Dido. Starting with my paper at the Modern Language Association in December 1987 on "Caxton's Eneydos and the Problem of Dido," I have presented papers on the medieval Dido at a series of conferences over the intervening years—Medieval Institute at Kalamazoo, 1988, 1991, 1992; and the Medieval Academy in 1992. In the collegial and intertextual world of academic subcultures and the conferences that support these subcultures, I have found a number of learned and generous colleagues who have assisted this project in numerous ways. I am particularly grateful to Kathleen Ashley, Jane Chance, Rita Copeland, Sheila Delany, Earl Jeffrey Richards, and several anonymous readers, all of whom read a complete draft of this project and offered critical suggestions. I am especially indebted to Louise Fradenburg, whose careful reading of this manuscript was exceptionally generous and helpful. Several people read portions of this book in progress and offered support of various kinds; among them I would especially like to thank Janet Abshire, Leslie Gaboon, Leslie Abend Callahan, Rebecca Coogan, Elizabeth Crachiolo, Margaret Driver, Tamara Jetton, Johanna X. K. Garvey, Ruth Ann Lawn Johnson, Diane Marks, Francis X. K. Newman, XI Preface Jerome Singerman, and Alvin Vos. I am also grateful to the members of my 1990 writing group—Deborah Britzman, Elsa Barkley Brown, Carole Boyce Davies, and Susan Sterret—none of whom is a medievalist, which makes their willingness to work through a project such as this quite heroic . Jean Wilson and Pamela Sheingorn gave me invaluable advice on working with visual material. Conversations with Kathleen Biddick, who shared her work in progress with me as well, helped keep several theoretical issues in focus. It is a pleasure to thank Phillip Damon and Anne Middleton, whose direction and support during my doctoral work and the early years in which I worked on this project helped launch this study. I also owe an enormous debt to Mary Louise Lord—whom I have never met—since her work on Dido literally paved the way for this study. My frequent citation of her work in the notes does not do justice to my reliance on her magisterial 1969 article on Dido. In addition, severalpeople have given me notice of Dido sightings/citings over the years, which has enriched the scope of this study; among these, Barbara Adams, Jeanne Krochalis, and Nicholas Havely deserve special mention. Sidonie Smith and William Spanos provided the sort of collegial support at a critical moment in this project—and in my career—that deserves a special thanks. Likewise, special thanks are due to a group of graduate students at Binghamton that includes Laura Barefield, Lynn Blanchfield, Ellen Brand, Rebecca Coogan, Helene Scheck, Mary Sokolowski, Christine Owens, and Ginny Whetsall, in addition to people I have already mentioned, who provided an ongoing dialogue about feminist theory and medieval studies during the years this book was taking shape. The women's studies community at Binghamton helped me survive the writing of this book and much else. A book such as this depends heavily on libraries and library staff; I am particularly grateful to the Department of Manuscripts at the British Library in London, the Bodleian Library in Oxford, the Cabinet des manuscrits of the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, the Bibliothequemunicipale in Lyons, the Rosenwald Collection at the Library of Congress, the Spencer Collection at the New York Public Library, the Morgan Library, and the rare book room at Cornell University for access to manuscripts...

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