Het academische werk van Alastair Minnis integreert op karakteristieke wijze leesstrategieën uit de literatuurkritiek met de geschiedenis van ideeën. Zijn werk wordt diepgaand beïnvloed door een interesse in middeleeuwse filosofie en theologie. Hij onderzoekt de manieren waarop concepties van het paradijs in de late middeleeuwen werden gecreëerd. Minnis' benadering kenmerkt zich door een synthese van nauwkeurige lezing en een breed historisch en filosofisch perspectief.
'Phantom limb pain' designates the sensations which emanate from limbs that in reality are missing. First coined in the American Civil War, Alastair Minnis traces the medieval parallels for this concept. Is a complete body necessary for personhood? These issues were as absorbing for medieval thinkers as they are for neuroscientists today.
In From Eden to Eternity, Alastair Minnis argues that Eden afforded an extraordinary amount of creative space to late medieval theologians, painters, and poets as they tried to understand the place that God had deemed worthy of the creature made in His image.
This unique volume offers for the first time a comprehensive introduction to the literary theory and criticism produced during the Middle Ages. The essays cover all the main traditions in Medieval Latin, Byzantine Greek, and the major European vernaculars, as well as the humanist debates on literature and its uses.