The Post-Historical Middle Ages

The Post-Historical Middle Ages
Author: E. Scala
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 239
Release: 2009-05-25
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0230621554

This collection of original essays repositions medieval literary studies after an era of historicism. Analyzing the legacy of Marxist and materialist theory on medieval literary criticism, the collection offers new ways of reading texts historically. Drawing upon aesthetic, ethical, and cultural vantage points and methods, these essays demonstrate that a variety of approaches and theories are "historical" and can change what it means to historicize medieval literature. By defining our post-historical moment in medieval English literary studies in terms of new possibilities, this collection will have broad appeal to those interested in the English Middle Ages, history, culture, and reading itself.

Consolation in Medieval Narrative

Consolation in Medieval Narrative
Author: C. Schrock
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2015-05-13
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1137447818

Medieval writers such as Chaucer, Abelard, and Langland often overlaid personal story and sacred history to produce a distinct narrative form. The first of its kind, this study traces this widely used narrative tradition to Augustine's two great histories: Confessions and City of God .

On Farting

On Farting
Author: V. Allen
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2010-05-24
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0230109063

This book presents waste as an aesthetic category that introduces an arsy-versy world where detritus is precious. This aesthetic is applied in the second part to etymology, poking through the 'paternal dungheaps' of words, and tracing their origins not to Eden but to Babel, puns, and word play.

Constructing Chaucer

Constructing Chaucer
Author: G. Gust
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2009-05-25
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0230621619

This book examines the scholarly construction of Geoffrey Chaucer in different historical eras, and challenges long-standing assumptions to enhance the theoretical dialogue on Chaucer's historical reception.

The Footprints of Michael the Archangel

The Footprints of Michael the Archangel
Author: J. Arnold
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 287
Release: 2013-10-23
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1137316551

Early Christians sought miracles from Michael the Archangel and this enigmatic ecumenical figure was the subject of hagiography, liturgical texts, and relics across Western Europe. Entering contemporary debates about angelology, this fascinating study explores the formation and diffusion of the cult of Saint Michael from c. 300-c.800.

Perilous Passages

Perilous Passages
Author: Julie Chappell
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 213
Release: 2015-12-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 1137277688

This study will significantly further our interpretations of the unique autobiography of Margery Kempe, lay woman turned mystic and visionary. Following the manuscript from a Carthusian monastery through history, Chappell bridges the gaps in our understanding of the transmission of texts from the medieval past to the present.

Pornographic Sensibilities

Pornographic Sensibilities
Author: Nicholas R. Jones
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2020-11-29
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1000264165

Pornographic Sensibilities stages a conversation between two fields—Medieval/Early Modern Hispanic Studies and Porn Studies—that traditionally have had little to say to each other. The collection offers innovative new approaches to the study of gendered and sexualized bodies in medieval and early modern textual production, including literary and historical documents. The volume’s embrace of the interpretative tools of Porn Studies also inscribes a critical provocation: in what ways can contemporary modes of reading the past serve to freshly illuminate not only the contours of that same past but also the very critical assumptions of the present upon which fields like medieval and early modern Hispanic Studies are built? In this way, Pornographic Sensibilities encourages at once both rigorous historicizations of pre- and early-modern culture, and playful engagement with "presentism," considered here as a critical tool to undress the hidden assumptions of both past and present. This move substantively challenges long-held critical orthodoxies among scholars of pre-Enlightenment periods, for whom the very category of "pornography" itself has often problematically been framed as an anachronism when applied to their work.

Thomas Hoccleve: New Approaches

Thomas Hoccleve: New Approaches
Author: Jennifer Nuttall
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Total Pages: 269
Release: 2022-09-13
Genre:
ISBN: 184384642X

This volume, the first collection of essays devoted to Hoccleve since 1996, both confirms his importance in shaping the English poetic tradition after Chaucer's death and demonstrates the depth of ongoing critical interest in Hoccleve's work in its own right.

Power and Sainthood

Power and Sainthood
Author: P. Salmesvuori
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2014-10-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 1137398930

Analyzing the renowned Saint Birgitta of Sweden from the perspectives of power, authority, and gender, this probing study investigates how Birgitta went about establishing her influence during the first ten years of her career as a living saint, in 1340–1349.