Literary studies: ancient, classical Books

Book SynopsisIn 1800 entries this valuable reference work covers texts and records of dramatic activity for about 400 sites in Britain from Roman times to 1558. Grouped in sections – Texts listed chronologically; Records of England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland and Other, classified by county, site, and date; and Doubtful Texts and Records – the entries summarize the contents of each record and give bibliographic information.Professor Lancashire presents a comprehensive survey of almost every type of literary and historical record, document, and work: civic, church, guild, monastic and royal court minutes and financial accounts; national records – Chancery, Parliament, Privy Council, Exchequer; royal proclamations; wills; local court rolls; jest-books, poems, prose treatises, sermons; archaeological remains, artifacts, illustrations. He brings together works in several normally unrelated fields: Roman theatre in Britain; medieval drama as such, including the Corpus Christ

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Book SynopsisUntil the nineteenth century it was common to assume that philosophers said more or less the same things throughout their lives. Such an attitude led their successors to turn their thoughts into harmonious systems which, though often of great philosophical interest, failed to reflect the detailed richness of a philosopher’s thought at any specific period in his life. In more recent times the study of a philosopher’s growth has often provided a greater understanding of what puzzled him, what problems he was trying to solve, and why he attempted to solve them the way he did.For Aristotle such an approach has led to many advances in our knowledge, but conflicting ‘readings’ have led to confusion and a tendency to revert to more systematic treatments. In an effort to confront this situation John Rist attempts to chart Aristotle’s philosophical progress, using the techniques of both philology and philosophical analysis. His aim is to see where Ar

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Book SynopsisThe Italian spoken in most of Tuscany is characterized by a number of peculiar pronunciations which for over half a century Romance scholars have explained by a theory of linguistic substratum influence. This theory postulates that present-day Tuscan pronunciation is a survival of the 'foreign accent' with which the ancient Etruscans must have spoken Latin when Rome first began to extend its power and language over the rest of Italy.Professor Izzo has undertaken a new and thorough investigation of modern Tuscan pronunciation, disproving this hypothesis and providing a definitive conclusion to the debate. He delineates clearly the errors in reasoning of those who trace the Tuscan pronunciation to an Etruscan influence, and presents his conclusions objectively.This study will interest Romance linguists, especially historians of the Italian language; but it will also interest historical linguists in general, for by disproving one of the most plausible and best-documented

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Book SynopsisOf all stylistic devices, imagery has the greatest appeal to the imagination, but is also the most likely to offend, either by staleness or by tasteless excess. This volume establishes some of the limitations which govern figurative language in Latin speech and prose by exploring such questions as these: From what physical or social contexts is Latin imagery derived? To what extent is it influenced by the primacy of Greek as a cultural language and the derivation of the earliest Latin literature from Greek models? How are the metaphors expressed in terms of syntax, through verb, noun, adjective, or a combination of syntactical forms? How are the form and content of imagery related to the literary genre?In this study Professor Fantham analyses in detail the conservative imagery of Terence and of Cicero's letters, contrasting this naturalistic language with the fantasies of Plautus and the formalization of Cicero's speeches. A separate chapter on the de Oratore shows how the th

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Book SynopsisPathologies of Love examines the role of medicine in the debate on women, known as the querelle des femmes, in early modern France. Questions concerning women’s physical makeup and its psychological and moral consequences played an integral role in the querelle. This debate on the status of women and their role in society began in the fifteenth century and continued through the sixteenth and, as many critics would say, well beyond.In querelle works early modern medicine, women’s sexual difference, literary reception, and gendered language often merge. Literary authors perpetuated medical ideas such as the notion of allegedly fatal lovesickness, and physicians published works that included disquisitions on the moral nature of women. In Pathologies of Love, Judy Kem looks at the writings of Christine de Pizan, Jean Molinet, Symphorien Champier, Jean Lemaire de Belges, and Marguerite de Navarre, examining the role of received medical ideas in tTrade Review"This study offers insight into the interlocking domains of literary history, medicine and gender in early modern France."—Alexandra Verini, Early Modern Women“An important and engaging book, Pathologies of Love examines the role played by received ideas on erotic diseases—from lovesickness to syphilis—in the early modern debates known as the querelle des femmes. . . . Accessible, thought provoking, and informative, this volume will prove essential reading for anyone interested in early modern medicine, gender studies, and literature.”—Nancy Frelick, associate professor of French studies at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver “The volume’s careful study of subjects as diverse as courtly love, early modern medicine’s perceptions of women, and questions of interpretation of sixteenth-century discourse and literature is a substantial and welcome contribution to the existing scholarship on women and their evolving role in early modern society.”—Leanna Bridge Rezvani, Department of Global Studies and Languages at MITTable of ContentsList of Illustrations List of Tables Acknowledgments Introduction: Early Modern Medicine and the Querelle des Femmes 1. Love or Seduction? Christine de Pizan’s Legacy from the Querelle de la Rose to the Querelle des Femmes 2. From Physical to Spiritual Love: Molinet’s Romant de la rose moralisé (1500) and the Querelle des Femmes 3. Platonic Love, Marriage, and Infertility in Symphorien Champier’s Nef des princes (1502) and Nef des dames (1503) 4. Love and Death in Lemaire’s Couronne Margaritique and the Trois contes de Cupido et d’Atropos: Excessive Grief and the Great Pox 5. Fatal Lovesickness in Marguerite de Navarre’s Quatre dames et quatre gentilzhommes and the Heptaméron Conclusion: From Courtly Love to Fatal Lovesickness Appendix 1: Works in the Querelle de la Rose and the Querelle des Femmes (1240–1673) Appendix 2: Major Early Modern Medical Authorities, Translators, and Commentators Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThe comic book has become an essential icon of the American Century, an era defined by optimism in the face of change and by recognition of the intrinsic value of democracy and modernization. For many, the Middle Ages stand as an antithesis to these ideals, and yet medievalist comics have emerged and endured, even thrived alongside their superhero counterparts. Chris Bishop presents a reception history of medievalist comics, setting them against a greater backdrop of modern American history. From its genesis in the 1930s to the present, Bishop surveys the medievalist comic, its stories, characters, settings, and themes drawn from the European Middle Ages. Hal Foster's Prince Valiant emerged from an America at odds with monarchy, but still in love with King Arthur. Green Arrow remains the continuation of a long fascination with Robin Hood that has become as central to the American identity as it was to the British. The Mighty Thor reflects the legacy of Germanic migration into the Uni

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Book SynopsisIntrinsically modernist paragons of pop-culture ephemera, American comics have ironically continued to engage with the European Middle Ages. Chris Bishop illuminates some of the ways in which we use an imagined past to navigate the present and plots some possible futures as we valiantly shape a new century.

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Book SynopsisThe Italian scholar and poet Francesco Petrarch (13041374) is best remembered today for vibrant and impassioned love poetry that helped to establish Italian as a literary language. Petrarch inspired later Renaissance writers, who produced an extraordinary body of work regarded today as perhaps the high-water mark of poetic productivity in the European West. These Petrarchan poets were self-consciously aware of themselves as poetsas craftsmen, revisers, and professionals. As William J. Kennedy shows in Petrarchism at Work, this commitment to professionalism and the mastery of poetic craft is essential to understanding Petrarch's legacy.Petrarchism at Work contributes to recent scholarship that explores relationships between poetics and economic history in early-modern European literature. Kennedy traces the development of a Renaissance aesthetics from one based upon Platonic intuition and visionary furor to one grounded in Aristotelian craftsmanship and techniqueTrade ReviewKennedy's command of the source materials and close readings of poetic variants are exceptional. With Petrarchism at Work he has written another authoritative and original study of Petrarch's legacy that will greatly impact theeld. * Renaissance Quarterly *Invites debate, reflection, and further contributions on a widening variety of textual corpora. This fine book has much to recommend it, especially to English-language students of Renaissance literature and history who seek to weigh the importance of one of Renaissance Europe's principal literary idioms as its distinctive forms appear in a representative variety of national contexts. * Renaissance and Reformation *Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Marketplace of Mercury Part One: Petrarch and Italian Poetry1. Petrarch as Homo Economicus 2. Making Petrarch Matter: The Parts and Labor of Textual Revision 3. Jeweler's Daughter Sings for Doge: Gaspara Stampa’s Entrepreneurial Poetics 4. Incommensurate Gifts: Michelangelo and the Economy of Revision Part Two: Pierre De Ronsard and Pléiade Aesthetics1. Polished to Perfection: Ronsard’s Investment in Les Amours 2. Ronsard Furieux: Interest in Ariosto 3. Passions and Privations: Writing Sonnets like a Pro in Les Amours de Marie4. The Smirched Muse: Commercializing Sonnets pour Hélène Part Three: Shakespeare’s Sonnets and the Economy of Petrarchan Aesthetics1. To Possess Is Not to Own: The Cost of the Dark Lady and the Young Man 2. Polish and Skill: Will’s Interest and Self-Interest in Sonnets 61–99 3. Owning Up to Furor: The "Poets’ War" and Its Aftermath in Sonnets 100–1264. Shakespeare as Professional: The Economy of Revision in Sonnets 1–60 Conclusion: Mercurial Economies

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Book SynopsisIn Raja Yudhisthira, Kevin McGrath brings his comprehensive literary, ethnographic, and analytical knowledge of the epic Mahabharata to bear on the representation of kingship in the poem. He shows how the preliterate Great Bharata song depicts both archaic and classical models of kingly and premonetary polity and how the king becomes a ruler who is viewed as ritually divine. Based on his precise and empirical close reading of the text, McGrath then addresses the idea of heroic religion in both antiquity and today; for bronze-age heroes still receive great devotional worship in modern India and communities continue to clash at the sites that have beenfor millenniaassociated with these epic figures; in fact, the word hero is in fact more of a religious than a martial term.One of the most important contributions of Raja Yudhisthira, and a subtext in McGrath''s analysis of Yudhisthira''s kingship, is the revelation that neither of the contesting moieties of tTrade Review"This is a remarkable, learned work that shows great sensitivity, born of very close reading, to the epic Mahabharata as an oral performative phonomenon. Kevin McGrath's arguments for the nature of archaic kingship envisioned by the poets of the Mahabharata as one in which 'sovereignty' is of a cooperative rather than absolute nature are persuasive and eye-opening. His exposition and clarification of the ideals of kingship in the Mahabharata are masterful: a better summing up of the complexity of the picture for the modern reader could not be found. Anyone interested in Greek epic poetry from a comparative perspective and, more broadly, in Indo-European myth and poetics will profit immensely from this work." -- Roger Dillard Woodard, Andrew Van Vranken Raymond Chair of the Classics and Professor of Classics, Linguistics, and Anthropology, University of Buffalo, author of Myth, Ritual, and the Warrior in Roman and Indo-European AntiquityTable of Contents1. The Beginning2. Kingship The Rajasuya Sequence War as Royal Rite The Asvamedha 3. Ideals of Kingship Archaic Ideals Installation Classical Ideals 4. The End

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Book SynopsisThe Renaissance jurist Alberico Gentili once quipped that, just like comedies, all wars end in a marriage. In medieval and early modern Europe, marriage treaties were a perennial feature of the diplomatic landscape. When one ruler decided to make peace with his enemy, the two parties often sealed their settlement with marriages between their respective families. In After Lavinia, John Watkins traces the history of the practice, focusing on the unusually close relationship between diplomacy and literary production in Western Europe from antiquity through the seventeenth century, when marriage began to lose its effectiveness and prestige as a tool of diplomacy.Watkins begins with Virgil''s foundational myth of the marriage between the Trojan hero Aeneas and the Latin princess, an account that formed the basis for numerous medieval and Renaissance celebrations of dynastic marriages by courtly poets and propagandists. In the book''s second half, he follows the slow decline of dipTrade ReviewWatkins’s study of marriage diplomacy is a compelling work which proves an indispensable reference for readers of all creeds: from the literary analyst, to the specialist in diplomacy, gender studies or conflict studies, and to the lay reader trying to understand a volatile zeitgeist.... Dismissing the place of literature in the political episteme of a time and of all time has never been better argued as being a major error. Watkins’s opus is not only a major and fresh contribution to the field, it is an enlightening commentary on contemporary politics and on the necessity of a literary view of history. * Cahiers Élisabéthains *Embarks upon an impressive tour of literary history to show how marriage acts served transnational diplomacy.... Historians will benefit from reading John Watkins' intellectually engaging literary history. * H-FRANCE *Watkins's book makes many insightful claims and raises a lot of intriguing questions about premodern mariage diplomacy. * Sixteenth Century Journal *Watkins's work offers a fresh perspective on interdynastic marriage and on diplomacy. As he makes clear throughout the text, Watkins wants to uncover the woman's voice in diplomatic history. Throughout the text, he does just that, creating a strong scholarly analysis that foregrounds gender and affirms the importance of the domestic, the maternal, and the reproductive.... Overall, Watkins's fascinating and ambitious work offers a positive contribution to academic conversations on queenship, marriage, international diplomacy, and literary celebrations and critiques of dynastic marriage. * Clio *Watkins raises authentically interesting questions about politics, gender, and religion, and demonstrates the value of literary sources and literary analysis for this topic. It is especially valuable for assembling a range of texts on interdynastic marriage, including Jordanes, Gregory of Tours, the Venerable Bede, Paul the Deacon, Dudo, William of Apulia, Wace, William of Malmsbury, and others, theological works as well as twelfth- and thirteenth-century vernacular romances and their treatments of royal marriages.... The broad sweep of this study is impressive, displaying the range of possible practices for monarch, marrying in or out, up or down, lateral—or... choosing not to marry at all. * Speculum *After Lavinia... provocatively aims at fostering a discussion about the nature of war and peacemaking in the premodern and modern worlds, and how the intertwined roles of gender, the passions, and, more generally, the irrational played a significant role in pre-Westphalian diplomatic society, and were later dangerously confined to the literary realm. In this sense, After Lavinia is a wonderful and thought-provoking book: it should be essential reading in and beyond the community of scholars working on these topics. * Diplomatica *A powerful, wide-ranging study.... A triumphant, fruitful marriage of critical methodologies and fields. It encompasses literary and cultural history, diplomatic history, international relations, gender studies, and other approaches. Its comparatist focus has much to teach specialists in English literature.... Magisterial. * Modern Language Quarterly *A fascinating interdisciplinary study of marriage diplomacy from the post-Roman period through the seventeenth century.... Watkins draws upon chronicle histories, medieval romances, diplomatic records, international society theory, pastoral verse, political pamphlets, and early modern drama to develop an ambitious and nuanced argument about the changing ideology of political marriages.... Watkins's book is both concise and elegantly structured given its very broad scope. It offers an important contribution to the study of diplomatic cultures, especially by articulating ideological positions that shaped the political roles of women, and scholars of any part of the European Middle Ages and early modern periods will learn a great deal from its longue durée narrative. -- Amanda Walling * Comparative Literature Studies *Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Voice of LaviniaPart I. Origins1. After Rome: Interdynastic Marriage during the First Christian Centuries2. Interdynastic Marriage, Religious Conversion, and the Expansion of Diplomatic Society3. From Chronicle to Romance: Interdynastic Marriage in the High Middle AgesPart II. Wanings4. Marriage Diplomacy, Print, and the Reformation5. Shakespeare's Adumbrations of State-Based Diplomacy6. Divas and Diplomacy in Seventeenth-Century FranceConclusion

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Book SynopsisBuilding on numerous original close readings of works by Homer, Hesiod, and other ancient Greek poets, Richard P. Martin articulates a broad and precise poetics of archaic Greek verse. The ancient Greek hexameter poetry of such works as the Iliad and the Odyssey differ from most modern verbal art because it was composed for live, face-to-face performance, often in a competitive setting, before an audience well versed in mythological and ritual lore. The essays collected here span Martin's acclaimed career and explore ways of reading this poetic heritage using principles and evidence from the comparative study of oral traditions, literary and speech-act theories, and the ethnographic record.Among topics analyzed in depth are the narrative structures of Homer's epics, the Hesiodic Works and Days, and the Homeric Hymn to Apollo; the characterization of poetic and musical performers within the poems; the social context for verses ascribed to the legendary singer Orpheus; the signTrade Review"Martin’s book is a major collection from one of the most significant scholars of archaic poetry working in the past several decades. In this richly synoptic and synthetic meditation on the complex workings of archaic poetry, Martin builds on and brilliantly transfigures the implications of oral poetics for any study of archaic (and Hellenistic) poetry—and indeed for poetics as a whole." -- Laura Slatkin, Professor of Classics, New York UniversityTable of ContentsIntroduction Part I: Epic Genre and Technique 1. Epic as Genre 2. Similes and Performance 3. Formulas and Speeches: The Usefulness of Parry's Method 4. Wrapping Homer Up: Cohesion, Discourse, and Deviation in the Iliad Part II: Mythic Hymnists, Historical Performers 5. Apollo's Kithara and Poseidon's Crash-Test: Ritual and Contest in the Evolution of Greek Aesthetics 6. The Senses of an Ending: Myth, Ritual, and Poetic Exodia in Performance 7. Synchronic Aspects of Homeric Performance: The Evidence of the Hymn to Apollo 8. Rhapsodizing Orpheus 9. Golden Verses: Voice and Authority in the Tablets Part III: Hesiodic Constructions 10. Hesiod and the Didactic Double 11. Hesiod's Metanastic Poetics 12. Hesiod, Odysseus, and the Instruction of Princes 13. Pulp Epic: The Catalogue and the Shield Part IV: The Backward Look 14. Keens from the Absent Chorus: Troy to Ulster 15. Telemachus and the Last Hero Song 16. Until It Ends: Varieties of Iliadic Anticipation 17. Distant Landmarks: Homer and Hesiod

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Book SynopsisBuilding on numerous original close readings of works by Homer, Hesiod, and other ancient Greek poets, Richard P. Martin articulates a broad and precise poetics of archaic Greek verse. The ancient Greek hexameter poetry of such works as the Iliad and the Odyssey differ from most modern verbal art because it was composed for live, face-to-face performance, often in a competitive setting, before an audience well versed in mythological and ritual lore. The essays collected here span Martin's acclaimed career and explore ways of reading this poetic heritage using principles and evidence from the comparative study of oral traditions, literary and speech-act theories, and the ethnographic record.Among topics analyzed in depth are the narrative structures of Homer's epics, the Hesiodic Works and Days, and the Homeric Hymn to Apollo; the characterization of poetic and musical performers within the poems; the social context for verses ascribed to the legendary singer Orpheus; the signTrade Review"Martin’s book is a major collection from one of the most significant scholars of archaic poetry working in the past several decades. In this richly synoptic and synthetic meditation on the complex workings of archaic poetry, Martin builds on and brilliantly transfigures the implications of oral poetics for any study of archaic (and Hellenistic) poetry—and indeed for poetics as a whole." -- Laura Slatkin, Professor of Classics, New York UniversityTable of ContentsIntroduction Part I: Epic Genre and Technique 1. Epic as Genre 2. Similes and Performance 3. Formulas and Speeches: The Usefulness of Parry's Method 4. Wrapping Homer Up: Cohesion, Discourse, and Deviation in the Iliad Part II: Mythic Hymnists, Historical Performers 5. Apollo's Kithara and Poseidon's Crash-Test: Ritual and Contest in the Evolution of Greek Aesthetics 6. The Senses of an Ending: Myth, Ritual, and Poetic Exodia in Performance 7. Synchronic Aspects of Homeric Performance: The Evidence of the Hymn to Apollo 8. Rhapsodizing Orpheus 9. Golden Verses: Voice and Authority in the Tablets Part III: Hesiodic Constructions 10. Hesiod and the Didactic Double 11. Hesiod's Metanastic Poetics 12. Hesiod, Odysseus, and the Instruction of Princes 13. Pulp Epic: The Catalogue and the Shield Part IV: The Backward Look 14. Keens from the Absent Chorus: Troy to Ulster 15. Telemachus and the Last Hero Song 16. Until It Ends: Varieties of Iliadic Anticipation 17. Distant Landmarks: Homer and Hesiod

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Book SynopsisIn Virgin Whore, Emma Maggie Solberg uncovers a surprisingly prevalent theme in late English medieval literature and culture: the celebration of the Virgin Mary's sexuality. Although history is narrated as a progressive loss of innocence, the Madonna has grown purer with each passing century. Looking to a period before the idea of her purity and virginity had ossified, Solberg uncovers depictions and interpretations of Mary, discernible in jokes and insults, icons and rituals, prayers and revelations, allegories and typologiesand in late medieval vernacular biblical drama.More unmistakable than any cultural artifact from late medieval England, these biblical plays do not exclusively interpret Mary and her virginity as fragile. In a collection of plays known as the N-Town manuscript, Mary is represented not only as virgin and mother but as virgin and promiscuous adulteress, dallying with the Trinity, the archangel Gabriel, and mortals in kaleidoscopic erotic combinationTrade ReviewSolberg adds new and surprising insights to ongoing conversations about Marian traditions and the history of sexuality. * Choice *Emma Maggie Solberg's Virgin Whore lives up to its provocative, no-punches-pulled title. Engagingly written, it is actively subversive from the get-go. * Journal of the American Academy of Religion *Solberg illuminates with careful attention the specific insults hurled in one play at both the adulteress whom Christ rescues in the Gospel of John and the Virgin herself * The New York Review of Books *Virgin Whore contributes not only to Marian studies but also to literary studies more widely by demonstrating early drama's use and transformation of tropes shared throughout the corpus of medieval literature. Providing a solid historical context for its arguments, this work will also be useful for scholars working on early performance, Jewish–Christian relations and anti-Semitism, Marian and Reformation theology, and medieval gender. Like the figure forming its subject matter, this is a visceral, courageous, and occasionally mischievous study. * Studies in the Age of Chaucer *Strikingly detailed, clearly organized, and disarmingly presented. * Renaissance Quarterly *Virgin Whore contains many interesting ideas, which Solberg presents in an engaging way, and is a welcome addition to the literature. * Sixteenth Century Journal *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction 1. The Many Fathers of Jesus Christ 2. Testing the Chastity of the Divine Adulteress 3. The Second Eve 4. Imitations of the Virgin 5. Promiscuous Mercy 6. The Whore of Babylon Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisIn Obscene Pedagogies, Carissa M. Harris investigates the relationship between obscenity, gender, and pedagogy in Middle English and Middle Scots literary texts from 1300 to 1580 to show how sexually explicit and defiantly vulgar speech taught readers and listeners about sexual behavior and consent.Through innovative close readings of literary texts including erotic lyrics, single-woman''s songs, debate poems between men and women, Scottish insult poetry battles, and The Canterbury Tales, Harris demonstrates how through its transgressive charge and galvanizing shock value, obscenity taught audiences about gender, sex, pleasure, and power in ways both positive and harmful. Harris''s own voice, proudly witty and sharply polemical, inspires the reader to address these medieval texts with an eye on contemporary issues of gender, violence, and misogyny.Trade ReviewHarris is an astute close reader of Late Middle English obscenity. * Times Higher Education *In Obscene Pedagogies, Carissa M. Harris offers an energetic and incisive analysis of medieval narratives and current affairs that turn on the transgressive power of obscenity. Bold and stylish writing, exemplary close readings, and provocative takes on familiar texts make Obscene Pedagogies a book that will richly reward undergraduate readers. * The Review of English Studies *There is a lot to commend in this book. Aside from its vigorous and energetic writing and the sheer density of insights, its overall approach is also worthy of note. * Modern Philology *This book marks a rare—but, one hopes, not for long—example of scholarship that employs skillful literary and cultural analysis to enlarge understanding of enduring social justice problems.... Harris's work is valuable for her insights about discourses surrounding sexual violence in the late Middle Ages. It is equally valuable for how she teaches her audiences about the diversity of ways sexual violence can be perceived, deployed, taught, experienced, and resisted in the Middle Ages and in the present moment.... It is a book that should not be restricted to the shelves of medievalists. * Studies in the Age of Chaucer *In her meticulously argued new book, Carissa Harris shows that obscenity was used to convey vastly different lessons about sex and ethics in medieval literature.... Dirty words tell us plenty about power. They show us who can speak, enjoy or censor language. They also point to those who are violated, brutalized, silenced. But there is a playful side to obscenity.... Harris's compelling study shows that obscene language can be vicious or, in the right beds and in the right books, dedicated to pleasure. * London Review of Books *Harris's book is a bold step forward, as well as a model of exemplary medievalist and feminist scholarship. * Speculum *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments List of Abbreviations Introduction: The Pedagogy of Obscenity 1. "Felawe Masculinity": Teaching Rape Culture in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales 2. "With a cunt": Obscene Misogyny and Masculine Pedagogical Community inthe Middle Scots Flyting 3. Pastourelle Encounters: Rape, Consent, and Sexual Negotiation 4. Pedagogies of Pleasure: Peer Educationin Medieval Women's Songs 5. Songs of Wantonness: Voicing Desirein Two Lyric Anthologies Conclusion: "Grab 'em by the pussy": Obscene Pedagogies, Past and Present Appendix to Chapter 4: Songs of Lusty Maidens Appendix to Chapter 5: Songs of Wantonness Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisRitual Irony is a critical study of four problematic later plays of Euripides: the Iphigenia in Aulis, the Phoenissae, the Heracles, and the Bacchae.Examining Euripides'' representation of sacrificial ritual against the background of late fifth-century Athens, Helene P. Foley shows that each of these plays confronts directly the difficulty of making an archaic poetic tradition relevant to a democratic society. She explores the important mediating role played by choral poetry and ritual in the plays, asserting that Euripides'' sacrificial metaphors and ritual performances link an anachronistic mythic ideal with a world dominated by chance or an incomprehensible divinity.Foley utilizes the ideas and methodology of contemporary literary theory and symbolic anthropology, addressing issues central to the emerging dialogue between the two fields. Her conclusions have important implications for the study of Greek tragedy as a whole and for oTrade Review"The author's treatment of four Euripidean tragedies produces both a new argument for the unity of these plays and an original and compelling way of reading Euripidean irony." -- Marylin B. Arthur, Department of Classics, Wesleyan University

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Book SynopsisCalling into question the common assumption that the Middle Ages produced no secondary epics, Ann W. Astell here revises a key chapter in literary history. She examines the connections between the Book of Job and Boethius'' s Consolation of Philosophytexts closely associated with each other in the minds of medieval readers and writersand demonstrates that these two works served as a conduit for the tradition of heroic poetry from antiquity through the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance. As she traces the complex influences of classical and biblical texts on vernacular literature, Astell offers provocative readings of works by Dante, Chaucer, Spenser, Malory, Milton, and many others.Astell looks at the relationship between the historical reception of the epic and successive imitative forms, showing how Boethius''s Consolation and Johan biblical commentaries echo the allegorical treatment of epic truth in the poems of Homer and Virgil, and how in turn many worksTrade ReviewThough present-day critics, who concentrate on form, generally find the epic discontinuous in the Middle Ages, Astell argues that the genre persisted as the biblical book of Job and Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy were imitated and alluded to as examples throughout the period.... The scholarship is prodigious, the argument convincing, and the Christian stance congenial to the subject. Highly recommended. * Choice *

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Book SynopsisStolen Song documents the act of cultural appropriation that created a founding moment for French literary history: the rescripting and domestication of troubadour song, a prestige corpus in the European sphere, as French. This book also documents the simultaneous creation of an alternative point of origin for French literary historya body of faux-archaic Occitanizing songs.Most scholars would find the claim that troubadour poetry is the origin of French literature uncomplicated and uncontroversial. However, Stolen Song shows that the Frenchness of this tradition was invented, constructed, and confected by francophone medieval poets and compilers keen to devise their own literary history.Stolen Song makes a major contribution to medieval studies both by exposing this act of cultural appropriation as the origin of the French canon and by elaborating a new approach to questions of political and cultural identity. Eliza Zingesser shows that these quesTrade ReviewDemonstrat[ing] a solid knowledge of her corpus and of the narratives she discusses... Eliza Zingesser offers readers a new way of reading Old French literature, looking at the adoption and conversion of materials to new purposes. She makes a strong case that medieval French authors subsumed Occitan. * SPECULUM *Zingesser approaches her carefully designed corpus through a persuasive combination of historical apprehension, manuscript expertise, close reading, and theory. She skillfully guides her readers through a vast amount of data with a clear, always elegant style. * H-France *Stolen Song is a testament to Zingesser's incisive powers of analysis. * Digital Philology *Thanks to Eliza Zingesser's carefully argued and painstakingly documented study, specialists of Old French and Old Occitan song may now better understand how Francophone authors and audiences sought to subsume Occitan literary prestige into their own cultural traditions. * Tenso *Stolen Song offers a welcome, fresh perspective on a medieval past. Zingesser's arguments are convincingly parsed out with great care and are solidly founded by primary source study alongside forerunning secondary scholarship, especially that of Sarah Kay—an obviously significant influence. * Comitatus *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. Of Birds and Madmen: Occitan Songs in French Songbooks 2. Keeping Up with the French: Jean Renart's Francophile Empire in the Roman de la rose 3. Birdsong and the Edges of the Empire: Gerbert de Montreuil's Roman de la violette 4. From Beak to Quill: Troubadour Lyric in Richard de Fournival's Bestiaire d'amour 5. The Rustic Troubadours: Occitanizing Lyrics in France Epilogue

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Book SynopsisIn The Space That Remains, Aaron Pelttari offers the first systematic study of the major fourth-century poets since Michael Robert''s foundational The Jeweled Style. It is the first book to give equal attention to both Christian and Pagan poetry and the first to take seriously the issue of readership.As Pelttari shows, the period marked a turn towards forms of writing that privilege the reader''s active involvement in shaping the meaning of the text. In the poetry of Ausonius, Claudian, and Prudentius we can see the increasing importance of distinctions between old and new, ancient and modern, forgotten and remembered. The strange traditionalism and verbalism of the day often concealed a desire for immediacy and presence. We can see these changes most clearly in the expectations placed upon readers. The space that remains is the space that the reader comes to inhabit, as would increasingly become the case in the literature of the Latin Middle Ages.Trade ReviewThe analysis itself is sharp and to the point, with each passage deftly handled to serve its point. The conclusions are thought-provoking. * Comitatus *Pelttari's project is thought-provoking... The Space that Remains will be fundamental to future discussions of Latin textuality, compositional practices, and the horizons of readers' expectations in Late Antiquity. * Journal of Roman Studies *This book is destined to be quoted in every discussion on late antique literary studies and it makes a significant contribution to the debate on Latin poetry of the 4th century. * Bryn Mawr Classical Review *The Space That Remains is an exciting book...Throughout it all, the author himself is excited, passionate, engaged... As a vision of strong readers in late antiquity, and as its own example of strong reading, The Space That Remains is promising and illuminating new work. * Classical World *In recent criticism of Late Antique poetry, Aaron Pelttari's book stands out because it has a theoretical focus on fourth-century literature. It is not a study of a particular poet, nor of a particular genre. Pelttari seeks to understand the special character of writing and reading poetry during this time period—what he describes as a "shift." * The Medieval Review *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Late Antique Poetry and the Figure of the Reader1. Text, Interpretation, and Authority2. Prefaces and the Reader's Approach to the Text3. Open Texts and Layers of Meaning4. The Presence of the Reader: Allusion in Late AntiquityConclusionReferences General Index Index of Passages Cited

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Book SynopsisMachiavelli on War offers a comprehensive interpretation of the philosopher-historian''s treatment of war throughout his writings, from poems and memoranda drafted while he was Florence''s top official for military matters to his posthumous works, The Prince and Discourses on Livy. Christopher Lynch argues that the issue of war permeates the form and content of each of Machiavelli''s works, the substance of his thoughts, and his own activity as a writer, concluding that he was the first great modern philosopher because he was the first modern philosopher of war.Lynch details Machiavelli''s understanding of warfare in terms of both actual armed conflict and at the intellectual level of thinkers competing on the field of knowledge and belief. Throughout Machiavelli''s works, he focuses on how military commanders'' knowledge of human necessities, beginning with their own, enables and requires them to mold soldiers, o

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Book SynopsisThe medieval northern world consisted of a vast and culturally diverse region both geographically, from roughly Greenland to Novgorod and culturally, as one of the last areas of Europe to be converted to Christianity. Old Norse Folklore explores the complexities of this fascinating world in case studies and theoretical essays that connect orality and performance theory to memory studies, and myths relating to pre-Christian Nordic religion to innovations within late medieval pilgrimage song culture.Old Norse Folklore provides critical new perspectives on the Old Norse world, some of which appear in this volume for the first time in English. Stephen A. Mitchell presents emerging methodologies by analyzing Old Norse materials to offer a better understandings ofunderstanding of Old Norse materials. He examines, interprets, and re-interprets the medieval data bequeathed to us by posteritymyths, legends, riddles, charms, court culture, conversion narratives, la

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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Book SynopsisMedieval books that survive today have been through a lot: singed by fire, mottled by mold, eaten by insects, annotated by readers, cut into fragments, or damaged through well-intentioned preservation efforts. In this book, Michelle Warren tells the story of one such manuscript—an Arthurian romance with textual origins in twelfth-century England now diffused across the twenty-first century internet. This trajectory has been propelled by a succession of technologies—from paper manufacture to printing to computers. Together, they have made literary history itself a cultural technology indebted to colonial capitalism. Bringing to bear media theory, medieval literary studies, and book history, Warren shows how digital infrastructures change texts and books, even very old ones. In the process, she uncovers a practice of "tech medievalism" that weaves through the history of computing since the mid-twentieth century; metaphors indebted to King Arthur and the Holy Grail are integral to some of the technologies that now sustain medieval books on the internet. This infrastructural approach to book history illuminates how the meaning of literature is made by many people besides canonical authors: translators, scribes, patrons, readers, collectors, librarians, cataloguers, editors, photographers, software programmers, and many more. Situated at the intersections of the digital humanities, library sciences, literary history, and book history, Holy Digital Grail offers new ways to conceptualize authorship, canon formation, and the definition of a "book."Trade Review"Deeply learned, self-reflective and ethical, and a really good read, Holy Digital Grail represents a lifetime's worth of thinking deeply."—Siân Echard, University of British Columbia"Book history built around the precarious adventures of a single—and singularly embattled—Arthurian manuscript. Michelle Warren is among the most original, creative, and technologically alert medieval scholars of our time."—Paul Strohm, Columbia University"This is the kind of book history scholarship we need in the twenty-first century: connective, imaginative, and unafraid to follow the histories of books wherever they lead. Michelle Warren's fascinating account of a single manuscript and its many afterlives connects our digital present and the medieval past with insight and verve, deftly combining the study of manuscripts, digitization, and media history in a remarkable synthesis."—Alan Galey, University of Toronto"Warren's book is praiseworthy not just for her knowledge about MS 80, but also for her detailed understanding of the work involved in creating digital editions and the clarity with which she explains (what may be) unfamiliar technical terminology and processes to the reader. Warren's focus on the paratextual features of the manuscript, along with the attention she pays to processes of editing, collating, and preservation, make a thoughtful contribution to publishing studies in highlighting much of the unseen (and frequently unacknowledged) work that shapes audience interactions with medieval manuscripts."—Martha Claire Baldon, The Medieval Review"Warren's personal approach presents a tangible expression of how new digital platforms have allowed and even prompted new avenues in manuscript studies."—C. E. M. Henderson, Modern Philology"As with the search for the Holy Grail, the goal is not always entirely tangible, but the journey itself is very enlightening—and, in this case, also entertaining.... [Holy Digital Grail] is about much more than merely tracing the history of the records of one manuscript. The book addresses key questions about interactions between digital infrastructure and book history as well as the making and remaking of books. Ultimately, one could also see behind this a reflection of research data in the humanities, which results from the source, its digitization, and the multilayered enrichment over time."—Luise Borek, H-Sci-Med-Tech"Holy Digital Grail is a carefully constructed and refreshing account of the history of a medieval book, from the origins of its text to its digital existence. Warren's interdisciplinary and reflective approach allows her to successfully disentangle the intricate connections between text, matter, technology, politics, and people."—Renske Annelize Hoff, Jarbuch für KommunikationsgeschichteTable of ContentsIntroduction: Medieval Literature in the Digital Dark Ages 1. Translating Arthur: Books, Texts, Machines 2. Performing Community: Merchants, Chivalry, Data 3. Marking Manuscripts: Makers, Users, Coders 4. Cataloguing Libraries: History, Romance, Website 5. Editing Romance: Poetry, Print, Platform 6. Reproducing Books: Binding, Microfilm, Digital Conclusion: Indexing the Grail, Romancing the Internet

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Book SynopsisAn incisive exploration of the way Greek myths empower us to defeat tyranny. As tyrannical passions increasingly plague twenty-first-century politics, tales told in ancient Greek epics and tragedies provide a vital antidote. Democracy as a concept did not exist until the Greeks coined the term and tried the experiment, but the idea can be traced to stories that the ancient Greeks told and retold. From the eighth through the fifth centuries BCE, Homeric epics and Athenian tragedies exposed the tyrannical potential of individuals and groups large and small. These stories identified abuses of power as self-defeating. They initiated and fostered a movement away from despotism and toward broader forms of political participation. Following her highly praised book Enraged: Why Violent Times Need Ancient Greek Myths, the classicist Emily Katz Anhalt retells tales from key ancient Greek texts and proceeds to interpret the important message they hold for us today. As she reveals, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Aeschylus's Oresteia, and Sophocles's Antigone encourage us—as they encouraged the ancient Greeks—to take responsibility for our own choices and their consequences. These stories emphasize the responsibilities that come with power (any power, whether derived from birth, wealth, personal talents, or numerical advantage), reminding us that the powerful and the powerless alike have obligations to each other. They assist us in restraining destructive passions and balancing tribal allegiances with civic responsibilities. They empower us to resist the tyrannical impulses not only of others but also in ourselves. In an era of political polarization, Embattled demonstrates that if we seek to eradicate tyranny in all its toxic forms, ancient Greek epics and tragedies can point the way.Trade Review"Anhalt encourages readers to look with fresh eyes at how easily power can be abused and how to fight back against despotic rule. Her engaging retellings of stories from ancient Greek epic and tragedy show just how relevant these texts are in the political climate of the twenty-first century." —Donna Zuckerberg, author of Not All Dead White Men: Classics and Misogyny in the Digital Age"The Greeks endured violence and demagoguery but also created antidotes, from the Odyssey's depiction of survival skills like rational deliberation, to the deep probes of politics by Aeschylus and Sophocles. Emily Katz Anhalt brilliantly articulates what this hard-won ancient wisdom offers those battling anti-democratic forces today."—Richard Martin, author of Myths of the Ancient Greeks"A thought-provoking exploration of how the ancient Greeks developed forms of storytelling to interrogate what it means to be a leader and how despotic leaders tend to abuse their power. The ancient myths at the center of this book speak to the present moment with uncanny prescience, as if written for our time as both a warning and an opportunity to rehearse the moral choices that we and our leaders must make each day."—Bryan Doerries, author of The Theater of War: What Ancient Greek Tragedies Can Teach Us Today"Anhalt's prose is wonderfully readable and at the same time deeply scholarly. She elucidates the social/political/psychological realities represented in these classic texts and demonstrates how critical reading of literature enables one to see one's own realities and their inherent dangers more clearly...Recommended."—M. F. McClure, CHOICEOur current political climate presents us with steep challenges. We could start by working toward exposing more students, and others, to these stories and texts in the first place. Even that seems an increasingly high bar. An engaging and readable volume like this one can help by presenting readers with the complexities and subtleties of Homer and the tragedies in an accessible way, and by encouraging us all to think with these myths as we try to understand our modern world, and, one hopes, work to improve it."—Daniel W. Berman, Bryn Mawr Classical ReviewTable of ContentsContents and AbstractsIntroduction: Confronting Tyranny Today chapter abstractToday, as in ancient times, tyrannical abuses of power—whether by one person, a few, or many—destroy individuals, corrode communities, and endanger democratic institutions. During the eighth through the fifth centuries BCE, however, ancient Greece witnessed an unprecedented movement away from tyranny and tribalism and toward civil society and broader forms of political participation. Democracy emerged as a consequence of gradual changes in social and political attitudes fostered by epic and tragic reworkings of Greek myths over many centuries. Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Aeschylus's Oresteia, and Sophocles's Antigone identify aspirations and skills crucial to preventing abuses of power in any and every era. The ancient Greeks never removed tyrannical abuses of power from their world or from themselves, but their stories show us why and how we could. 1Leadership (Iliad 1–2) chapter abstractThe Iliad's opening scenes depict a hierarchical, destructively competitive power structure familiar to the epic's earliest archaic audiences and not unfamiliar to us today. High achievers compete ruthlessly for honor, wealth, and supremacy at the expense of the community's welfare. Truth succumbs to violence and intimidation. Cruelty and bystanders' enjoyment of it constitute the emblems of tyrannical leadership and thoughtless subjection to it. By adhering to the principles of their own society, leading men harm their communities and themselves. The epic's human characters blame the gods for their suffering, but the audience sees that human choices are far more determinative than divine actions, and their consequences more predictable. Democracy was not even a concept when tales of the Trojan War began to circulate, but the Iliad begins by exposing the cost to everyone of exclusively self-serving leadership, and suggesting that the community bears the responsibility for defining "good" leadership. 2Community (Odyssey 1–4) chapter abstractThe Odyssey begins by emphasizing that human communities need some form of mortal political authority capable of maintaining order. In the archaic world of Homer's characters and earliest audiences, "political authority" meant a king or a small group of powerful elites; but the epic begins to undermine the legitimacy of unfettered and unaccountable autocratic authority by suggesting that the powerful are responsible for the quality of life of everyone subject to their power. The Odyssey defines a "good" king as a ruler who benefits not merely himself but everyone in the community by promoting respect for reciprocal obligations among everyone, including himself. The ancient Greeks themselves failed to achieve this goal, but the Odyssey's portrait of communal order and happiness excludes all forms of tyranny. It offers both a challenge and an invitation to every human community. 3Reality (Odyssey 5–8) chapter abstractOdysseus's adventures begin with his remarkable choice of reality over fantasy. This choice initiates his return home and permits him to recover his political authority and reestablish order and happiness for himself, his household, and his community. The seductions and deceptions of imaginative non-reality-based narratives can help cultivate our evidence-based reasoning skills. But Odysseus's example reminds us that a preference for fantasy, irrationality, and magical thinking over the reality of empirical lived experience can corrode our capacity for rational thought and prevent constructive political discourse and creative problem-solving. Preferring fantasy to reality, we risk empowering the tyrants and would-be tyrants in our own times, because they are hard at work in the real world while we amuse ourselves in imaginary ones. The rejection of tyranny originates in the realization that real-life problems require real-life solutions. 4Deception (Odyssey 9–16) chapter abstractThis section of the Odyssey reminds us that the distinction between "true" and "false" matters, and that recognizing the distinction is our responsibility. Instead of asking or permitting the audience to suspend disbelief, tales narrated by Odysseus evoke our skepticism and cultivate our empiricism because we have other evidence against which to measure them. The Odyssey suggests that the determination of "true" or "false" is not merely a matter of opinion. Truth must be objectively verifiable. Matching wits with Odysseus, we develop the skills to defend ourselves against authoritative speakers who bombard us with fictions, even contradictory fictions, so as to eradicate the very concept of objective fact. 5Success (Odyssey 17–24) chapter abstractThe Odyssey's conclusion introduces a profoundly egalitarian challenge to any narrowly based or exclusive power structure, and to the primitive equation of vengeance with justice. Ingenuity, skepticism, empiricism, and self-restraint enable Odysseus to succeed in exacting violent revenge against the rapacious, shortsighted suitors. But the epic presents these essential survival skills as potentially accessible to anyone, and Odysseus's successful defeat of the suitors offers no guarantee of permanently benevolent leadership, political harmony, or future prosperity. The epic's unsatisfying ending reminds the audience that vengeance is not a solution but a problem, a source of greater conflict. Violent revenge manifests as a lethal threat to civil society, since it is likely to escalate and become interminable. Not violence but farsighted wisdom and self-restraint, symbolized by Athena's ultimate intervention, prove vital to individual and communal survival and success. 6Justice (Aeschylus's Oresteia) chapter abstractAthenian tragedies in the fifth century BCE challenged traditional, archaic tribal goals and promoted new ideals more conducive to preserving civil society and democratic institutions. The Oresteia undermines the age-old equation of revenge with justice, revising an ancient tale and dramatizing the devastating consequences of retributive violence. As each violent act in this new version derives from and produces others, Aeschylus exposes the common fallacy of assuming that because one side in a dispute appears deeply wrong the other side must be right. In the trilogy's conclusion, persuasive speech permits a zero-sum conception of justice and victory to evolve from a crushing conquest of one side at the expense of another into a conception of victory as a win for all concerned. The Oresteia presents the trial by jury as a healthier alternative to vengeance killings. Our great challenge is to make that vision a reality. 7Conflict (Sophocles's Antigone) chapter abstractLike the Homeric epics, Athenian tragedies offer us, as they offered fifth-century Athenians, the opportunity to learn from others' mistakes. Sophocles's Antigone explores the great challenge confronting every human community: What do we do when we disagree? Antigone exposes the catastrophic consequences of a closed mind incapable of accepting new information or thinking creatively. Neither Creon nor Antigone is a constructive role model. The collision between Creon's rejection of the family in favor of civic loyalties and Antigone's "family first" certainty and disregard for civic loyalties destroys family, city, and the relevant individuals. Inflexible, hot-tempered, and impervious to reasoned argument, Antigone and Creon collide and self-destruct. Antigone learns nothing. Creon learns too late. They cannot be helped, but maybe we can be. Dramatizing how not to go about resolving disputes, Sophocles's cautionary tale reminds us that in every conflict our certainties may blind us to better ideas. Conclusion: The Art of Self-Governance chapter abstractTwenty-first-century tyranny is merely the latest iteration of an age-old pestilence. The Iliad, Odyssey, Oresteia, and Antigone can help to inoculate us against it. These stories remind us that words have consequences and that discernment is our responsibility. They teach us to value evidence and expertise, and to choose leaders who will not sacrifice the welfare of the community to their own shortsighted greed. Exposing the tyrannical potential of a closed mind, these tales encourage us to resist the seductions of violence, assess facts, value diverse viewpoints, and resolve complex problems creatively. They not only fortify us against liars, magical thinkers, con artists, and thugs, but also remind us to beware of becoming liars, magical thinkers, con artists, or thugs ourselves. Fortified by ancient Greek tales against the tyrannical forces of today, we can learn to govern ourselves.

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Book SynopsisFrom medieval contemplation to the early modern cosmopoetic imagination, to the invention of aesthetic experience, to nineteenth-century decadent literature, and to early-twentieth century essayistic forms of writing and film, Niklaus Largier shows that mystical practices have been reinvented across the centuries, generating a notion of possibility with unexpected critical potential. Arguing for a new understanding of mystical experience, Largier foregrounds the ways in which devotion builds on experimental practices of figuration in order to shape perception, emotions, and thoughts anew. Largier illuminates how devotional practices are invested in the creation of possibilities, and this investment has been a key element in a wide range of experimental engagements in literature and art from the seventeenth to the twentieth century, and most recently in forms of "new materialism." Read as a history of the senses and emotions, the book argues that mystical and devotional practices have long been invested in the modulating and reconfiguring of sensation, affects, and thoughts. Read as a book about practices of figuration, it questions ordinary protocols of interpretation in the humanities, and the priority given to a hermeneutic understanding of texts and cultural artifacts.Trade Review"This is a truly original work, grounded in wonderfully wide and deep learning. It is also a profound reflection on the ethical life and the role figuration might play within it. There is nothing like it that I know of, nor could anyone without Largier's range of learning and depth of thought have written it."—Amy Hollywood, author of Acute Melancholia and Other Essays"Figures of Possibility is a singular achievement, both as a work of breathtaking scholarship and as a new and exciting theory of aesthetic experience. The writing is exceptionally clear; the prose is passionate, beautiful, and compelling. Largier turns rigorous scholarship on medieval and early modern mysticism into a new approach to reading literature and aesthetic experience."—Eric Santner, author of Untying Things Together"Figures of Possibility is an ambitious, original, and thought-provoking book."—Lieke Smits, Material Religion

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Book SynopsisMedieval books that survive today have been through a lot: singed by fire, mottled by mold, eaten by insects, annotated by readers, cut into fragments, or damaged through well-intentioned preservation efforts. In this book, Michelle Warren tells the story of one such manuscript—an Arthurian romance with textual origins in twelfth-century England now diffused across the twenty-first century internet. This trajectory has been propelled by a succession of technologies—from paper manufacture to printing to computers. Together, they have made literary history itself a cultural technology indebted to colonial capitalism. Bringing to bear media theory, medieval literary studies, and book history, Warren shows how digital infrastructures change texts and books, even very old ones. In the process, she uncovers a practice of "tech medievalism" that weaves through the history of computing since the mid-twentieth century; metaphors indebted to King Arthur and the Holy Grail are integral to some of the technologies that now sustain medieval books on the internet. This infrastructural approach to book history illuminates how the meaning of literature is made by many people besides canonical authors: translators, scribes, patrons, readers, collectors, librarians, cataloguers, editors, photographers, software programmers, and many more. Situated at the intersections of the digital humanities, library sciences, literary history, and book history, Holy Digital Grail offers new ways to conceptualize authorship, canon formation, and the definition of a "book."Trade Review"Deeply learned, self-reflective and ethical, and a really good read, Holy Digital Grail represents a lifetime's worth of thinking deeply."—Siân Echard, University of British Columbia"Book history built around the precarious adventures of a single—and singularly embattled—Arthurian manuscript. Michelle Warren is among the most original, creative, and technologically alert medieval scholars of our time."—Paul Strohm, Columbia University"This is the kind of book history scholarship we need in the twenty-first century: connective, imaginative, and unafraid to follow the histories of books wherever they lead. Michelle Warren's fascinating account of a single manuscript and its many afterlives connects our digital present and the medieval past with insight and verve, deftly combining the study of manuscripts, digitization, and media history in a remarkable synthesis."—Alan Galey, University of Toronto"Warren's book is praiseworthy not just for her knowledge about MS 80, but also for her detailed understanding of the work involved in creating digital editions and the clarity with which she explains (what may be) unfamiliar technical terminology and processes to the reader. Warren's focus on the paratextual features of the manuscript, along with the attention she pays to processes of editing, collating, and preservation, make a thoughtful contribution to publishing studies in highlighting much of the unseen (and frequently unacknowledged) work that shapes audience interactions with medieval manuscripts."—Martha Claire Baldon, The Medieval Review"Warren's personal approach presents a tangible expression of how new digital platforms have allowed and even prompted new avenues in manuscript studies."—C. E. M. Henderson, Modern Philology"As with the search for the Holy Grail, the goal is not always entirely tangible, but the journey itself is very enlightening—and, in this case, also entertaining.... [Holy Digital Grail] is about much more than merely tracing the history of the records of one manuscript. The book addresses key questions about interactions between digital infrastructure and book history as well as the making and remaking of books. Ultimately, one could also see behind this a reflection of research data in the humanities, which results from the source, its digitization, and the multilayered enrichment over time."—Luise Borek, H-Sci-Med-Tech"Holy Digital Grail is a carefully constructed and refreshing account of the history of a medieval book, from the origins of its text to its digital existence. Warren's interdisciplinary and reflective approach allows her to successfully disentangle the intricate connections between text, matter, technology, politics, and people."—Renske Annelize Hoff, Jarbuch für KommunikationsgeschichteTable of ContentsIntroduction: Medieval Literature in the Digital Dark Ages 1. Translating Arthur: Books, Texts, Machines 2. Performing Community: Merchants, Chivalry, Data 3. Marking Manuscripts: Makers, Users, Coders 4. Cataloguing Libraries: History, Romance, Website 5. Editing Romance: Poetry, Print, Platform 6. Reproducing Books: Binding, Microfilm, Digital Conclusion: Indexing the Grail, Romancing the Internet

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Book SynopsisMedieval manuscripts are our shared inheritance, and today they are more accessible than ever—thanks to digital copies online. Yet for all that widespread digitization has fundamentally transformed how we connect with the medieval past, we understand very little about what these digital objects really are. We rarely consider how they are made or who makes them. This case study-rich book demystifies digitization, revealing what it's like to remake medieval books online and connecting modern digital manuscripts to their much longer media history, from print, to photography, to the rise of the internet. Examining classic late-1990s projects like Digital Scriptorium 1.0 alongside late-2010s initiatives like Bibliotheca Philadelphiensis, and world-famous projects created by the British Library, Corpus Christi College Cambridge, Stanford University, and the Walters Art Museum against in-house digitizations performed in lesser-studied libraries, Whearty tells never-before-published narratives about globally important digital manuscript archives. Drawing together medieval literature, manuscript studies, digital humanities, and imaging sciences, Whearty shines a spotlight on the hidden expert labor responsible for today's revolutionary digital access to medieval culture. Ultimately, this book argues that centering the modern labor and laborers at the heart of digital cultural heritage fosters a more just and more rigorous future for medieval, manuscript, and media studies.Trade Review"Digital Codicology offers a captivating mix of literary sensitivity and technical detail. Bridget Whearty has created a precious record of digital culture, labor, and technology at the turn of the twenty-first century."—Michelle Warren, Dartmouth College"Whearty demonstrates that the digitization of medieval manuscripts is not merely an automatic technical process, but one that involves value judgments, hidden costs, and invisible labor at every stage. The result is a convincing argument for understanding digitization within much longer traditions of textual transmission."—Johanna Drucker, University of California, Los Angeles"This book is nuanced in its arguments, clear-eyed in its calls for change, and admirably insistent upon the material and collective labors of digitization and scholarship. Deeply insightful and fiercely generous."—Matthew Fisher, University of California, Los Angeles"Bridget Whearty has written an extraordinary book. To say that this is just a digital humanities monograph is to simplify a complex, multifaceted and extremely timely contribution to the humanities as a whole. While ostensibly the topic of Digital Codicology describes the process of digitisation and its consequences, Whearty has delivered on little over three hundred pages a book on the nature of medieval research, a piece of auto-ethnography, and a pretty decent piece of critical theory. All this in a readable form with a light, approachable style."—Mateusz Fafinski, SELIM: Journal of the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature"A valuable resource for anyone wishing to understand digital manuscripts and their uses. Recommended."—D. W. Hayes, CHOICE"Whearty has written a powerful book that may yet haunt the librarians, academics, and archivists who read it long after they put it down. This is an important, valuable, and sobering book that deserves to be on undergraduate reading lists, and on the desks of anyone who produces or uses digitised manuscripts and other cultural heritage objects in their work."—Sarah Gilbert, Association for Manuscripts and Archives in Research Collections NewsletterTable of ContentsIntroduction: "Embodied Books, Disembodied Labor" 1. "Scriptorium 2.0" 2. "Value and Visibility: Copying San Marino, Huntington Library, MS HM 111" 3. "Digital Incunables: Copying Lydgate's Fall of Princes, ca. 1997–2017" 4. "Interoperable Metadata and Failing toward the Future" Coda: "Glitch" Appendix: "Doing Digital Codicology: A Manifesto."

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Book SynopsisWhat shall we make of medieval English lyrics? They have no fixed line or meter, no consistent point of view, and their content may seem misaligned with the other texts in manuscripts in which they are found. Yet in Lyric Tactics, Ingrid Nelson argues that the lyric poetry of later medieval England is a distinct genre defined not by its poetic features—rhyme, meter, and stanza forms—but by its modes of writing and performance, which are ad hoc, improvisatory, and situational. Nelson looks at anonymous devotional and love poems that circulated in manuscripts of practical, religious, and literary material or were embedded in popular, courtly, and liturgical works. For her, the poems' abilities to participate in multiple modes of transmission are "lyric tactics," responsive and contingent modes of practice that emerge in opposition to institutional or poetic norms. Working across the three languages of medieval England (English, French, and Latin), Nelson examines the tactics of poetic voice in the trilingual texts of British Library MS Harley 2253, which contains the well-known English "Harley lyrics." In a study of the English hymns and French lyrics of the commonplace book of William Herebert, she unearths the moral implications of lyric tactics for the friars who produced and disseminated them. And last, she examines the work of Geoffrey Chaucer and shows how his introduction of Continental poetic forms such as the balade and the rondeau suggests continuity with rather than a break from earlier English lyric. Combining literary analysis, manuscript studies, and cultural history with modern social theory, Ingrid Nelson demonstrates that medieval lyric poetry formed a crucial part of the fabric of later medieval English society.Trade Review"Lyric Tactics offers a deeply observed, learned, and resonant account of Middle English lyrics that … will no doubt be a touchstone of further research on the subject for years to come." * Modern Philology *"Ingrid Nelson deftly sketches the place of the medieval English lyric in literary history and theory. … [A] cogent and enlightening book." * Renaissance Quarterly *"[A] thoughtful treatment . . . [t]he English medieval lyric has received relatively little critical attention in recent decades, and this book is a welcome addition to the existing bibliography, bringing as it does a variety of recent critical perspectives to bear on a particularly elusive body of material." * Modern Language Review *"Ingrid Nelson's Lyric Tactics is a vital and brilliant contribution to the new lyric studies. While hardly leaving behind formalist concerns, Nelson demonstrates the embeddedness of lyric form within specific cultural and institutional practices in original and eye-opening ways. The book breathes new life into Middle English lyric and sets the standard for future work in this still understudied genre." * Bruce Holsinger, University of Virginia *"The medieval lyric remains an uncodified form, an open topic demanding fresh perspectives and new tools of analysis. Ingrid Nelson accepts this challenge, shifting consideration from lyric form to lyric practice and, in the process, opening multiple new avenues of consideration. Noting that these poems are variously read and heard and spoken and sung, she offers new ways of thinking about vocality and voice. She shows herself a highly creative scavenger among fragments, partial and accidental survivals, self-thematized and unprofessional performances-crafting exemplary case studies that throw new light on medieval lyrical practice." * Paul Strohm, Columbia University *"A sophisticated, painstaking, and original book. The thoughtfulness of its readings, and the sheer intellectual zest of Lyric Tactics make a significant impact on what we have come to call 'the new medieval lyric studies.'" * Ardis Butterfield, Yale University *Table of ContentsIntroduction Chapter 1. The Voices of Harley 2253 Chapter 2. Enchanting Songs and Rhyming Doctrine in William Herebert's Hymns Chapter 3. Lyric Negotiations: Continental Forms and Troilus and Criseyde Chapter 4. Form and Ethics in Handlyng Synne and the Legend of Good Women Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index Acknowledgments

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Book SynopsisA timely rethinking of the archetypal story of Noah, the great flood, and who was left behind as the waters rose Most people know the story of Noah from a children’s bible or a play set with a colorful ship, bearded Noah, pairs of animals, and an uncomplicated vision of survival. Noah’s ark, however, will forever be haunted by what it leaves to the rising waters so that the world can begin again.In Noah’s Arkive, Jeffrey J. Cohen and Julian Yates examine the long history of imagining endurance against climate catastrophe—as well as alternative ways of creating refuge. They trace how the elements of the flood narrative were elaborated in medieval and early modern art, text, and music, and now shape writing and thinking during the current age of anthropogenic climate change. Arguing that the biblical ark may well be the worst possible exemplar of human behavior, the chapters draw on a range of sources, from the Epic of Gilgamesh and Ovid’s tale of Deucalion and Pyrrah, to speculative fiction, climate fiction, and stories and art dwelling with environmental catastrophe. Noah’s Arkive uncovers the startling afterlife of the Genesis narrative written from the perspective of Noah’s wife and family, the animals on the ark, and those excluded and so left behind to die. This book of recovered stories speaks eloquently to the ethical and political burdens of living through the Anthropocene.Following a climate change narrative across the millennia, Noah’s Arkive surveys the long history of dwelling with the consequences of choosing only a few to survive in order to start the world over. It is an intriguing meditation on how the story of the ark can frame how we think about environmental catastrophe and refuge, conservation and exclusion, offering hope for a better future by heeding what we know from the past.Trade Review "Noah’s Arkive is an indispensable book—one that takes on a central charismatic narrative equipped to address the shuddering socio-ecological transition within which we (a vastly differentiated “we”) find ourselves. Magisterial yet wisely irreverent, it touches upon urgent challenges, including ecofascism, decolonialization, and racial justice, while also delivering a learned, meticulously researched exhibit of historical ark narratives."—Stephanie LeMenager, University of Oregon "Aboard Noah’s Arkive you’ll experience the Flood from the perspectives of its human and animal passengers and the multitude of creatures drowning shipside, accompanied by the sanctimonious dove and the raucous raven. This beautiful, deep, funny, ardent, rageful book will float the boat of anyone interested in ecocriticism, material culture, science studies, and design."—Julia Reinhard Lupton, University of California, Irvine

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Book SynopsisFrom pet keeping to sky burials, a posthuman and ecocritical interrogation of and challenge to human particularity in medieval texts Mainstream medieval thought, like much of mainstream modern thought, habitually argued that because humans alone had language, reason, and immortal souls, all other life was simply theirs for the taking. But outside this scholarly consensus teemed a host of other ways to imagine the shared worlds of humans and nonhumans. How Not to Make a Human engages with these nonsystematic practices and thought to challenge both human particularity and the notion that agency, free will, and rationality are the defining characteristics of being human.Recuperating the Middle Ages as a lost opportunity for decentering humanity, Karl Steel provides a posthuman and ecocritical interrogation of a wide range of medieval texts. Exploring such diverse topics as medieval pet keeping, stories of feral and isolated children, the ecological implications of funeral practices, and the “bare life” of oysters from a variety of disanthropic perspectives, Steel furnishes contemporary posthumanists with overlooked cultural models to challenge human and other supremacies at their roots. By collecting beliefs and practices outside the mainstream of medieval thought, How Not to Make a Human connects contemporary concerns with ecology, animal life, and rethinkings of what it means to be human to uncanny materials that emphasize matters of death, violence, edibility, and vulnerability. Trade Review"In How Not to Make a Human, Karl Steel thinks with worm-eaten corpses, oysters, pets, feral children and other creatures in a wide range of literary and visual materials and through them traces a medieval sense of the shared embodiment of humans and animals that has too often been ignored. This fascinating book challenges assumptions about the human and the period and should be read by medievalists, posthumanists, and everyone in between."—Erica Fudge, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow"How Not to Make a Human welcomes fleas, nits, and worms among other bedfellows to eat away at human superiority. The book swarms and crawls with new life, composting so much dead matter. Karl Steel finds prospects for the future in a medieval corpus consumed by the low, noxious, and parasitic. He prepares earthy grounds for an estranging posthuman ethics emerging from our shared destitution, with implications that go far beyond any single historical period."—J. Allan Mitchell, author of Becoming Human: The Matter of the Medieval Child"The book as a whole is fascinating and Steel's choice of material very exciting."—CHOICE"How Not to Make a Human gives medievalists a stronger voice in conversations about ecocriticism, posthumanism, and critical animal studies. At the same time, it can inspire non-medievalists with its revised—and ultimately much more fruitful—set of medieval inheritances for ecocritical thought."—ISLE"A real strength in the book is Steel’s ability to trace narrative threads through temporal, linguistic, and manuscript sources and analogues."—Speculum "A compelling meditation on how humans are unmade, combining premodern notions of spontaneous generation with ecofeminist theories of compost."—Environmental History

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Book SynopsisFrom pet keeping to sky burials, a posthuman and ecocritical interrogation of and challenge to human particularity in medieval texts Mainstream medieval thought, like much of mainstream modern thought, habitually argued that because humans alone had language, reason, and immortal souls, all other life was simply theirs for the taking. But outside this scholarly consensus teemed a host of other ways to imagine the shared worlds of humans and nonhumans. How Not to Make a Human engages with these nonsystematic practices and thought to challenge both human particularity and the notion that agency, free will, and rationality are the defining characteristics of being human.Recuperating the Middle Ages as a lost opportunity for decentering humanity, Karl Steel provides a posthuman and ecocritical interrogation of a wide range of medieval texts. Exploring such diverse topics as medieval pet keeping, stories of feral and isolated children, the ecological implications of funeral practices, and the “bare life” of oysters from a variety of disanthropic perspectives, Steel furnishes contemporary posthumanists with overlooked cultural models to challenge human and other supremacies at their roots. By collecting beliefs and practices outside the mainstream of medieval thought, How Not to Make a Human connects contemporary concerns with ecology, animal life, and rethinkings of what it means to be human to uncanny materials that emphasize matters of death, violence, edibility, and vulnerability. Trade Review"In How Not to Make a Human, Karl Steel thinks with worm-eaten corpses, oysters, pets, feral children and other creatures in a wide range of literary and visual materials and through them traces a medieval sense of the shared embodiment of humans and animals that has too often been ignored. This fascinating book challenges assumptions about the human and the period and should be read by medievalists, posthumanists, and everyone in between."—Erica Fudge, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow"How Not to Make a Human welcomes fleas, nits, and worms among other bedfellows to eat away at human superiority. The book swarms and crawls with new life, composting so much dead matter. Karl Steel finds prospects for the future in a medieval corpus consumed by the low, noxious, and parasitic. He prepares earthy grounds for an estranging posthuman ethics emerging from our shared destitution, with implications that go far beyond any single historical period."—J. Allan Mitchell, author of Becoming Human: The Matter of the Medieval Child"The book as a whole is fascinating and Steel's choice of material very exciting."—CHOICE"How Not to Make a Human gives medievalists a stronger voice in conversations about ecocriticism, posthumanism, and critical animal studies. At the same time, it can inspire non-medievalists with its revised—and ultimately much more fruitful—set of medieval inheritances for ecocritical thought."—ISLE"A real strength in the book is Steel’s ability to trace narrative threads through temporal, linguistic, and manuscript sources and analogues."—Speculum "A compelling meditation on how humans are unmade, combining premodern notions of spontaneous generation with ecofeminist theories of compost."—Environmental History

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Book SynopsisCulinary Comedy in Medieval French Literature focuses on the intersection of food and humor across several medieval narrative genres. This book is a part of the Purdue Studies in Romance Literature Series.

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Book SynopsisAdopting an empirical and systematic approach, this interdisciplinary study of medieval Persian Sufi tradition and ʿAttār (1145-1221) opens up a new space of comparison for reading and understanding medieval Persian and European literatures. The book invites us on an intellectual journey that reveals exciting intersections that redefine the hierarchies and terms of comparison. While the primary focus of the book is on reassessing the significance of the concept of transgression and construction of subjectivity within select works of ʿAttār within Persian Sufi tradition, the author also creates a bridge between medieval and modern, literature and theory, and European and Middle Eastern cultures through reading these works alongside one another. Of significance to the author is ʿAttār's treatment of enlightenment with regard to class, religious, gender, and sexuality transgressions. In this book, the relation between transgression and the limit is not viewed as one of liberation from oppressive restrictions, but of undoing the structures that produce constraining binaries; it allows for alternatives and possibilities. In conjunction with the concepts of transgression and the limit, the presence of society's marginalized pariahs, outcasts, and untouchables are central to the book's main argument about construction of subjectivity, which the author believes is framed within ʿAttār's notion of mystical love and human diversity. The book addresses the question of whether concepts such as transgression, limit, and subjectivity are solely applicable to modern times, or they can shed light on our understanding of transgression and subjectivity from the past. The author's comparative inquiries aim to intensify our understanding of these notions advanced in both the medieval and the modern world. Through summoning works from various genres, disciplines, cultures, and times, the author posits that medieval literary works are living texts that can reveal as much about our present selves as they do about the past.

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Book SynopsisThis important new critical biography traces in carefully considered detail what is known of Geoffrey Chaucer's personal life while exploring the fascinating relationship between the man of affairs, who made so many 'improvisations and accommodations' to ensure his own survival, and the poet. A major reexamination of England's greatest narrative poet, it is supplemented with reproductions of Chaucer portraits and other illustrations, including maps of medieval England.Trade Review"Few can write so interestingly, fewer Chaucerians." Notes and Queries "In this rich and comprehensive book, Professor Pearsall combines his expert knowledge of modern Chaucer scholarship and criticism with a refreshing directness in expressing his own opinions. He sees the same `aloof and uncomitted' spirit in Chaucer's poems as in his career; and it is hard to believe that there will ever be a more coherent and convincing account of the life and works of this elusive poet." J. A. Burrow "... highly readable, built on a sound scholarly base with wit and judgment...." Derek Brewer "... it is the merit of Pearsall's book that he returns England's first true poet to the muddle, viciousness and disorder of 14th-century London. He insists continually that we divest ourselves of modern preoccupations... in order to see Chaucer as he was." Peter Ackroyd, The Times "An excellent account." Peter Ackroyd The Times "The life-records are expertly interpreted in terms of social history. The works are placed in their generic frames, and discussed in probable order of composition through the life. The criticism, if at times it has to be summary, is sturdy, candid and well-judged. The scholarship is masterly, that is, unobtrusive, and the lively exposition free from old academic vices, and from modern ones." English "Rife with insights into both the poet's life and his work, this superb book can introduce undergraduates to Chaucer and yet also provide much for seasoned critics and scholars to ponder and debate. A fine reference for the life, times, and works. A must for all libraries." Choice "Is a pleasure to read. An excellent book by a distinguished scholar." Notes and Queries "Pearsall has solved, with elegance and precision, the problem of writing on things which have not only often been considered before, but also frequently discussed." Buchbesprechungen "Pearsall's writing is marked by its firm reasonableness and humour and a confident awareness of contemporary critical thought, and his studies of Chaucer's literary experiments and enquiries as he turned from one visionary poem to another form some of the most stimulating pages of this book." Southern Humanities Review "Often hilarious, by turns, enlightening and provocative. It can be read and appreciated on several levels, as a detailed history of the period, as textual history, and as literary criticism as well as biography." Modern Law Review "Any book-length biography of Chaucer has to be the product of a highly creative imagination, for very little is known about the poets life. This one, highly readable, is fleshed out with a little history and a lot of intelligent and perceptive literary criticism." Sunday Telegraph "Excellent on Chaucer both as a creative writer and a public administrator." The Observer "It is hard to imagine how Derek Pearsall's fine 'critical biography' of Chaucer could be superseded. It will, however, enrage most people some of the time, and some people most of the time; but all for the right reasons. Its originality lies in its refusal to speculate. Pearsall refuses to join the game of invention. Nor will he refashion Chaucer to his own preferred image... this book is a delight to read." Review of English StudiesTable of ContentsList of figures and illustrations. List of Abbreviations. Introduction: Writing a life of Chaucer. 1. Beginnings (c.1340-1360). 2. Early Career (The 1360s). 3. Advances (The 1370s). 4. Fame (1380-1386). 5. Reversals, New Beginnings (1386-1391). 6. Renewal (The 1390s). Epilogue. Appendix I The Chaucer Portraits. Notes. List of Short Titles and Bibliography. Index.

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Book SynopsisSpecial issue focusing on violence in fifteenth-century life, text, and image: warfare and justice, violence in family and milieu (court, town, village, and forest), hagiography, ethnicity and xenophobia, gender relations and sexual violence, brutality on the stage, and the relation of text and image in the depiction of violence. Founded in 1977 as the publication organ for the Fifteenth-Century Symposium, Fifteenth-Century Studies has appeared annually since then. It publishes essays on all aspects of life in the fifteenth century, including literature, drama, history, philosophy, art, music, religion, science, and ritual and custom. The editors strive to do justice to the most contested medieval century, a period that has long been the stepchild of research. The fifteenth century defies consensus on fundamental issues: some scholars dispute, in fact, whether it belonged to the middle ages at all, arguing that it was a period of transition, a passage to modern times. At issue, therefore, is the very tenor of an age that stood under the influence of Gutenberg, Columbus, the Devotio Moderna,, and Humanism. Volume 27 is a special issue offering a selection of outstanding papers on violence that will interest students of medieval history and the early Renaissance, the humanities, art history, sociology, anthropology, and even the general reader. The articles highlight warfare and justice, violence in family and milieu (court, town, village,and forest), hagiography, ethnicity and xenophobia, gender relations and sexual violence, brutality on the stage, and the relation of text and image in the depiction of violence. Edelgard E. DuBruck is professor in theModern Languages Department at Marygrove College in Detroit; Yael Even is associate professor of Art and Art History at the University of Missouri, St. Louis.Table of ContentsPreface - Edelgard E. DuBruck Introduction - Yael Even Spectator Responses to an Image of Violence: Seeing Apollonia - Marla Carlson Der ernsthafte König oder die Hölle schon auf Erden: Gewalt im Dienste des Seelenheils - Marianne Derron Lazarus's Vision of Hell: A Significant Passage in Late-Medieval Passion Plays - Edelgard E. DuBruck Violence and Late-Medieval Justice - Edelgard E. DuBruck La noblesse face à la violence: arrestations, exécutions et assassinats dans les Chroniques de Jean Froissart commandées par Louis de Gruuthuse (Paris, B.N.F., mss fr. 2643-46)commandées par Louis de Gruuthuse - Olivier Ellena The Music of the Medieval Body in Pain - Jody Enders The Emergence of Sexual Violence in Quattrocento Florentine Art - Yael Even Some Lesser-Known Ladies of Public Art: On Women and Lions - Yael Even The Self in the Eyes of the Other: Creating Violent Expectations in Late-Medieval German Drama - Matthew Z. Heintzelman Cleansing the Social Body: Andrea Mantegna's Judith and the Moor (1490-1505) - Carol Janson Aggression and Annihilation: Spanish Sentimental Romances and the Legends of the Saints - Claudia Kruells-Hepermann Der Malleus Maleficarum (1487) und die Hexenverfolgung in Deutschland - Ina Lommatzsch "For They Know Not What They Do": Violence in Medieval Passion Iconography - Robert Mills Zur Bedeutung von Gewalt in der Reynaert-Epik des 15. Jahrhunderts - Rita Schlusemann Terror and Laughter in the Images of the Wild Man: The Case of the 1489 Valentin et Orson - Shira Schwam-Baird Rereading Rape in Two Versions of La Fille du comte de Pontieua - Nancy E Virtue The French Kill Their King: The Assassination of Childeric II in Late-Medieval French Historiography - Sanford Zale

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Book SynopsisA detailed, contextualized picture of the very beginnings of writing in German from around 750 to 1100. This second volume of the set not only presents a detailed picture of the beginnings of writing in German from its first emergence as a literary language from around 750 to 1100, but also places those earliest writings into a context. The first stages of German literature existed within a manuscript culture, so careful consideration is given to what constitutes the actual texts, but German literature also arose within a society that had recently been Christianized -- through the medium of Latin. Therefore what we understand by literature in Germany at this early period must include a great amount of writing in Latin. Thus the volume looks in detail at Latin works in prose and verse, but with an eye upon the interaction between Latin and German writings. Some of the material in the newly written German language is not literary in the modern sense of the word, but makes clear the difficulties and indeed the triumphs of the establishing of a written literary language. Individual chapters look first at the earliest translations and functional literature in German (including charms and prayers); next, the examination of heroic material juxtaposes the Hildebrandlied with the Christian Ludwigslied and with Latin writings like Waltharius and the panegyrics; Otfrid's work -- the Gospel-poem in German -- is given its due prominence; the smaller German texts and the later prose works are fully treated; as is chronicle-writing in German and Latin. Old High German literature was a trickle compared to the flood of the Latin that surrounded (and influenced) it, but its importance is undeniable: that trickle became a river. Contributors: Linda Archibald, Graeme Dunphy, Stephen Penn, Christopher Wells, Jonathan West, Brian Murdoch. Brian Murdoch is Professor of German at the University of Stirling,Scotland.Trade ReviewA fine addition to English-language scholarship on the topic. Highly recommended. * CHOICE *... fills a void in the scholarship.... offer[s] a fresh look at the core texts of the early medieval period and the context in which they were produced.... [This is] a carefully edited book. Students and teachers/scholars will benefit from the concise and stimulating analysis of core texts, as well as from the very helpful notes, bibliography of primary and secondary literature, and index. * THE MEDIEVAL REVIEW *Students of Old High German language and literature will greatly profit from this solid collection of articles. * GERMAN STUDIES REVIEW *This volume ... provides access for non-specialists to texts and issues involving the works of the Old High German period. In his introduction, Murdoch offers a concise look at the dizzying array of pertinent territorial, linguistic, orthographic, and codicological issues.... The essays themselves are clearly written, and assume very little knowledge of the subject matter. * GERMAN QUARTERLY *A solidly written, carefully crafted and thorough introduction to the history of German literature of the early medieval period. Brian Murdoch and his volume authors have succeeded in publishing a standard work for the Anglo-Saxon world. For German readers the book is a welcome supplement to existing literary histories. * MEDIAEVISTIK *The first two volumes in the Camden House History of German Literature together provide the reader with an admirably innovative guide to tackling the earliest literature in German and in related Germanic languages. * MODERN LANGUAGE REVIEW *Table of ContentsIntroduction - Into German: The Language of the Earliest German Literature - Jon West Charms, Recipes, and Prayers - Latin Prose: Latin Writing in the Frankish World, 700-1100 - Linda Archibald Latin Verse - Stephen Penn Heroic Verse - Otfrid of Weissenburg - Linda Archibald The Shorter German Verse Texts - Christopher Wells Historical Writing in and after the Old High German Period - R. Graeme Dunphy Late Old High German Prose - Jon West

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Book Synopsis15th-c. adaptations of Chrétien de Troyes, the use of motifs, and standard features including current state of research and book review section. Setting the tone for volume 24 is a trio of articles on 15th-century French adaptations of Chrétien de Troyes's Arthurian romances. Norris Lacy examines adaptation and reception in Cligés,Jane Taylor writes on the importance of cultural details to reception studies of both Erec and Cligés, and Maria Timelli on structural aspects of Erec. Other studies of romance include MaryLynn Saul's article on courtly love and patriarchal marriage institutions in Malory, and Anne Caillaud's piece on gender conventions of courtly love as a vehicle for misogyny in Antoine de la Sale's Petit Jehan de Saintre. Hans-Joachim Behr deals with an adaptation of the 12th-century historical figure of Heinrich von der Löwe in his article on the poetic workof Michel Wyssenherre. Roxana Recio's article on Spanish "amplifications and glosses" draws connections between translation, reception, and interpretation.Moving from romance to legend, Peter De Wilde, in his article on the legendary matter of St. Patrick's journeys to Purgatory, relates a 15th-century account of one Englishman's "visionary pilgrimage" to that destination.A second area of concentration in the volume is the thematic and structural use of motifs. Rainer Goetz discusses archery in Spanish poetry of love and death; Georg Roellenbleck courtly pastimes and the term passe temps inFrench poetry. James Wilkins focuses on the "body as currency" in French passion plays. Kristine Patz moves into art history, examining the importance of the Pythagorean ypsilonin the work of the Italian painter Mantegna.Dealing with the turn to Renaissance humanism are articles by Grady Smith on the short literary career and Latin dramas of Titus Livius Frulovisi, and by Christiane Raynaudon humanism and good government in the Latin Romuleon. Franco Mormando investigates a darker moment: the 1426 witch trial in Rome and the role of Bernardino of Siena as its instigator and chronicler. Rouben Choulakian writes on the poetry of Charles d'Orlean

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Book SynopsisA new view of King Rother in which not only the wooer but also his bride-to-be enacts a quest. King Rother, a twelfth-century bridal-quest epic, occupies an important place in the history of German literature. The earliest surviving and structurally most sophisticated of the so-called minstrel epics, verse narrativesonce assumed to have been recited by itinerant minstrels before a courtly audience, it has its roots in German folklore and documents the transition from orality to the culture of the book. The text belongs to the subgenre of theperilous bridal quest, in which the disguised wooer deceives the bride's father and abducts her with her consent. This simple quest structure is doubled, if the wooer must win his bride a second time from her father, who has rescued her. The bride is almost always a passive figure in these events, the main conflict being the disparity in status between the wooer and his prospective father-in-law. King Rother is structurally complex, as the presentstudy is the first to recognize: the quest structure is doubled not only in the wooer's second quest, but also in the bride's own actions -- including her use of deception in a parallel quest for her wooer. This underscores her equality in status, which is her essential qualification to be his wife. The study includes an important English-language summary of scholarship on King Rother, on the minstrel epics, and on the bridal quest. Thomas Kerth is Associate Professor of German at Stony Brook University.Trade ReviewAn excellent analysis of the much-discussed topic of medieval German minstrel epics. . . . An immediate strength of Kerth's book is his ability to condense scholarly research on various aspects of Rother's quest while also anchoring it in the sociopolitical environment of its time. . . . It is a noteworthy addition to the ever-expanding discussion of minstrel and bridal quest epics in general and of King Rother in particular. * SPECULUM *Kerth has read deeply in the scholarship on Middle High German romance and minstrel epic, and he does a real service for those who do not read German by outlining this research in detail. . . . A very good close reading of the epic, and one well worth the attention of scholars of folk narrative, epic, and romance. * JOURNAL OF FOLKLORE RESEARCH *Represents an important contribution to research on King Rother in the context of its genesis. By bringing attention to the role of female agency, the author provides new impulses for readings of this work as well as other bridal-quest narratives. . . . The book is especially to be recommended to university students, to whom it provides systematic access to an important representative of the medieval German bridal-quest epic. * MONATSHEFTE *An extended commentary on the epic,. written in a fluent and unfussy style. * TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT *A significant study: [Kerth's] activation of the female posits equality even as the world struggles with post-Crusade, Islamic East-West divides of the earthly kingdom. Recommended. * CHOICE *Taken as a whole . . . this study is a good introduction to Rother, and one that . . . can be read productively even without far-reaching foreknowledge [of the subject]. It is not only suited to making students acquainted with this text, but will also certainly contribute to establishing the work especially in Anglo-American research discourse. Additionally, in regard to the analysis of the women figures in the bridal quest narratives as well as in regard to the possibilities of the narrative model of the dangerous bridal quest, it can enrich current debates with interesting observations that in turn can be taken up and thought through by further Rother research. * ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR DEUTSCHE PHILOLOGIE *Table of ContentsMinstrels and Bridal Quests Sources and History Rother Constantin and his Queen Rother's Quest The Active Bride Merging Quests Counter-Quest Doubled Quest Reconciliation and Consent Eternal Quest Conclusion Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisNew essays by outstanding European and American medievalists on major aspects of the most enduring medieval epic. The legend of Tristan and Isolde -- the archetypal narrative about the turbulent effects of all-consuming, passionate love -- achieved its most complete and profound rendering in the German poet Gottfried von Strassburg's verse romance Tristan (ca. 1200-1210). Along with his great literary rival Wolfram von Eschenbach and his versatile predecessor Hartmann von Aue, Gottfried is considered one of three greatest poets produced by medieval Germany, andover the centuries his Tristan has lost none of its ability to attract with the beauty of its poetry and to challenge -- if not provoke -- with its sympathetic depiction of adulterous love. The essays, written by a dozen leading Gottfried specialists in Europe and North America, provide definitive treatments of significant aspects of this most important and challenging high medieval version of the Tristan legend. They examine aspects of Gottfried'sunparalleled narrative artistry; the important connections between Gottfried's Tristan and the socio-cultural situation in which it was composed; and the reception of Gottfried's challenging romance both by later poets inthe Middle Ages and by nineteenth- and twentieth-century authors, composers, and artists -- particularly Richard Wagner. The volume also contains new interpretations of significant figures, episodes, and elements (Riwalin and Blanscheflur, Isolde of the White Hands, the Love Potion, the performance of love, the female figures) in Gottfried's revolutionary romance, which provocatively elevates a sexual, human love to a summum bonum. Will Hasty is Professor of German at the University of Florida. He is the editor of Companion to Wolfram's "Parzival," (Camden House, 1999). Click here to view the introduction (PDF file 83KB)Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Challenge of Gottfried's Tristan - Will Hasty Humanism in the High Middle Ages: The Case of Gottfried's Tristan - Alois Wolf Gottfried's Strasbourg: The City and Its People - Michael S. Batts Gottfried's Adaptation of the Story of Riwalin and Blanscheflur - Danielle Buschinger This drink will be the death of you: Interpreting the Love Potion in Gottfried's Tristan - Sidney M. Johnson God, Religion, and Ambiguity in Tristan - Nigel Harris The Female Figures in Gottfried's Tristan and Isolde - Ann Marie Rasmussen The Performance of Love: Tristan and Isolde at Court - Will Hasty Duplicity and Duplexity: The Isolde of the White Hands Sequence - Neil Thomas Between Epic and Lyric Poetry: The Originality of Gottfried's Tristan - Daniel Rocher History, Fable and Love: Gottfried, Thomas, and the Matter of Britain - Adrian Stevens The Medieval Reception of Gottfried's Tristan - Marion E. Gibbs The Modern Reception of Gottfried's Tristan and the Medieval Legend of Tristan and Isolde - Ulrich Mueller

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Book SynopsisKey topics in important German medieval work surveyed and reassessed. Few works of the middle ages can boast the `staying power' of the 'heroic' Nibelungenlied and few have generated more controversy both among scholars and the educated public. The Nibelung theme has been ubiquitous over the past 150 years in a wide spectrum of literary and as well as non-literary endeavors. It was used by Friedrich Hebbel as the basis for one of his best psychological dramas, by Wagner, along with the Old Norse analogues, for Die Ring des Nibelungen, and by the film maker Fritz Lang for his 1920s Expressionist masterpiece, Die Nibelungen. Its heroes provided suitable models for German troops who marched against Napoleon, while by the end of World War II, the Nibelung tradition had provided material for a speech by Göring, the name for Germany's western line of defense, and significantly, the cuffband designation of the last 'division' formed in the elite Combat SS. This Companion to the Nibelungenlied draws on the expertise of scholars from German, Britain, and the United States to offer the reader fresh perspectives on a wide variety of topics regarding the epic: the latest theories regarding manuscript tradition, authorship, conflict, combat, and politics, the Otherworld and its inhabitants, eroticism (in both the Nibelungenlied and Wagner's Ring), the reception both of the Nibelungenlied in the twentieth century and of its most intriguing protagonist, Kriemhild, key concepts used by the poet, the heroic, feudal, and courtly elements in the work, and an analysis of archetypal elements from the perspective of Jungian psychology. Winder McConnell is Professor of German at the University of California, Davis.Trade Review...a collection of fine essays from many scholarly luminaries on a dozen topics. * CHOICE *'This book touches on most of the current problems of scholarship. * YEAR'S WORK IN MODERN LANGUAGE STUDIES *

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Book SynopsisThis volume presents first editions of a variety of cuneiform tablets from the Old Babylonian period belonging to the collection of the late Shlomo Moussaieff. It makes available for the first time three texts representing varying levels of Mesopotamian scribal education. The first is what the authors argue is the most complete copy of the first fifty lines of the standard version of the Sumerian epic Gilgameš and the Bull of Heaven. The second is a hitherto unpublished bilingual (Sumerian-Akkadian) lexical list of unknown provenance, similar to the Proto-Aa syllabary. Each of the 314 entries preserved on this tablet provides a pronunciation gloss, a Sumerian logogram, and an Akkadian translation. A unique feature of this list is that the signs are arranged on the basis of graphic concatenation: each sign contains one of the graphic components of the preceding sign. It also yields a great number of hitherto unknown, synonymous Akkadian translations to the Sumerian logograms. The final chapter contains an edition of two groups of lenticular school tablets, containing thirty-three elementary-level scribal exercises.With this volume, Jacob Klein and Yitschak Sefati preserve and disseminate important artifacts that advance the study of Sumerian literature, Mesopotamian lexicography, and ancient Near Eastern scribal education.Trade Review“Editing the texts in this volume is a tremendous accomplishment. One can only imagine all the effort and scholarship that went into this publication, which hopefully will reach a broader audience than Sumerologists alone.”—John Hayes Review of Biblical LiteratureTable of ContentsPrefaceGeneral IntroductionI. Gilgameš and the Bull of HeavenIntroductionOutline of the Plot Political-Historical Background Description of the Moussaieff Tablet (ShM) Composite Text and Translation Commentary Score The Mussaieff Tablet Transliteration .Copy Photographs Word Index II. An Old Babylonian Bilingual Lexical Text Introduction Transliteration and Translation Commentary Sequence of Basic Sign Forms Comparative Synopsis of KA, IGI, and KU in the Syllabaries ShM, Proto-Ea, and EaComparative Synopsis of Syllabaries —Number of Lexical EntriesSyllabary Sumerian-Akkadian Word Index Akkadian-Sumerian Word Index Photographs III. Lenticular School Tablets Introduction Collection A (nos. 1–10) Collection B (nos. 46–69) Word Index Bibliography and Abbreviations General Index

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Book SynopsisHarlot or Holy Woman? presents an exhaustive study of qedešah, a Hebrew word meaning “consecrated woman” but rendered “prostitute” or “sacred prostitute” in Bible translations. Reexamining biblical and extrabiblical texts, Phyllis A. Bird questions how qedešah came to be associated with prostitution and offers an alternative explanation of the term, one that suggests a wider participation for women as religious specialists in Israel’s early cultic practice.Bird’s study reviews all the texts from classical antiquity cited as sources for an institution of “sacred prostitution,” alongside a comprehensive analysis of the cuneiform texts from Mesopotamia containing the cognate qadištu and Ugaritic texts containing the masculine cognate qdš. Through these texts, Bird presents a portrait of women dedicated to a deity, engaged in a variety of activities from cultic ritual to wet-nursing, and sharing a common generic name with the qedešah of ancient Israel. In the final chapter she returns to biblical texts, reexamining them in light of the new evidence from the ancient Near East.Considering alternative models for constructing women’s religious roles in ancient Israel, this wholly original study offers new interpretations of key texts and raises questions about the nature of Israelite religion as practiced outside the royal cult and central sanctuary.Trade Review“Phyllis Bird deserves praise for amassing all this material into one volume and for her careful and insightful analysis of both biblical and extrabiblical texts.”—Elaine Adler Goodfriend Review of Biblical Literature“Exploring the relationship between Orientalism and the myth of sacred prostitution reveals the ongoing significance of Bird’s work. Her book shows how the myth of sacred prostitution is embedded in a broader discourse about fertility and the uncontrolled sexuality of Middle Eastern women—and this may be the lasting legacy of the work.”—Jessie DeGrado OrientaliaTable of ContentsPreface and AcknowledgmentsList of Abbreviations1. Introduction2. Sacred Prostitution as Interpretive Construct3. Sir James George Frazer and the Concept of Sacred Prostitution 4. Classical Sources in Constructions of Sacred Prostitution5. New Sources from the Ancient Near East6. Qedešah in the Hebrew BibleAppendix A. Synopsis of Classical Sources in Constructions of Sacred ProstitutionAppendix B. Synopsis of qadištu /nu.gig TextsAppendix C. Nu- gig in Early Sumerian TextsBibliographyIndex of Sources

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Book SynopsisIn the summer of 1818, Percy Bysshe Shelley pulled himself away from a flurry of other projects to devote himself to translating Plato's Symposium. Besides being one of the very great lyric poets of Romanticism, Shelley was an accomplished Hellenist, and had a natural sympathy for Plato's way of seeing the world. The result of his labor was a translation of Plato's principal work on love that is, in both clarity and felicity of expression, unmatched by any contemporary translation. Much of what the dialogue offers to today's reader - namely, its invitation to see erotic experience as the privileged locus of our contact with the sacred and the divine - is lost in translation by failures of tone more than by inaccuracies or simple infelicities. The elevation and sophistication of Shelley's prose makes his translation a much better English vehicle for Plato's writing than the rather chatty and colloquial translations current today. Plato's speeches on love need an English idiom in which myth is at home, and in which humour rises to urbanity rather than descending to mere wit and joke. With Shelley, we get a translation of a great literary masterpiece by a writer who is himself a literary master, and his mastery is of exactly the type required by Plato's text. This translation came at the height of Shelley's powers, mirroring in language and conception some of his finest works, and so is itself a precious document in the history of Romanticism, for which the re-appropriation of Plato is second in importance only to the massive influence of Shakespeare. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, her husband's literary executor, upon publication of (a somewhat expurgated version of) the dialogue, boasted that "Shelley resembled Plato; both taking more delight in the abstract and the ideal than in the special and the tangible. This did not result from imitation; for it was not till Shelley resided in Italy that he made Plato his study. He then translated his Symposium and Ion; and the English language boasts of no more brilliant composition than Plato's Praise of Love translated by Shelley." If this goes too far, it goes at least in the right direction. David K. O'Connor, in his introduction and footnotes, provides the historical and philosophic framework to appreciate best the importance of the dialogue and translation.Table of Contentsintroduction, notes, Stephanus numbers, index

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Book SynopsisA prolific poet and a protofeminist, Christine de Pizan worked within a sophisticated late medieval court culture and formed an identity as an authority on her society's preoccupations with religion, politics, and morality. Her works address various aspects of misogyny, the appropriate actions of rulers, and the ethical framework for social conduct. In addition to gaining a readership in fifteenth-century France, Christine's works influenced writers in Tudor England and were identified by twentieth-century readers as important contributions to both the emergence of a professional literary class and to the intellectual climate that gave rise to early modern Europe.Part 1 of this volume, ""Materials,"" surveys the editions in Middle French, translations into modern French and English, and the many scholarly resources and critical reactions of the past fifty years. Part 2, ""Approaches,"" provides insights into various aspects of Christine's works that can be explored with students, from considerations of genre and form to the themes of virtue, history, and memory. Teachers of French, English, world literature, and women's studies will find useful ideas throughout the volume.Trade ReviewThis volume draws on the expertise of some of the foremost scholars in the field, and its well-chosen selection of new essays place Christine de Pizan's work within a broad spectrum of pedagogical contexts."" - Suzanne Conklin Akbari, University of Toronto

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Book SynopsisThe Italian romance epic of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, with its multitude of characters, complex plots, and roots in medieval Carolingian and Arthurian chivalric romances, was a form popular with courtly and urban audiences. In the hands of writers such as Boiardo, Ariosto, and Tasso, works of remarkable sophistication that combined high seriousness and low comedy were created. Their works went on to influence Cervantes, Milton, Ronsard, Shakespeare, and Spenser.In this volume, instructors will find ideas for teaching the Italian Renaissance romance epic along with its adaptations in film, theater, visual art, and music. An extensive resources section locates primary texts online and lists critical studies, anthologies, and reference works.Trade ReviewThe critical acumen, comprehensive scholarship, and dazzling array of breakthrough topics in this volume are everywhere unimpeachable."" - William J. Kennedy, Cornell University

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