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Cover; Title; Copyright; Dedication; Contents; Acknowledgments; List of abbreviations; 1 The Biblical history of language; Creation and fall; Plato, aristotle, and augustine; Signs of decay: civilization and its discontents; Pentecost and apocalypse; Fallen language; 2 Love and language in Jean de Meun; Saturn and the dissemination of language; 3 Dante and Chaucer's Dante; Adam's language and ours; Adam's language in paradiso 26; Dante's logos , chaucer's words; Name and fame; 4 The prison-house of language; The decay of language: second nun to canon's yeoman; Cousin to the deed; Notes