Description
Book SynopsisAn examination of the erotic in medieval literature which includes articles on the role of clothing and nudity, the tension between eroticism and transgression and religion and the erotic. This volume examines the erotic in the literature of medieval Britain, primarily in Middle English, but also in Latin, Welsh and Old French. Seeking to discover the nature of the erotic and how it differs from modern erotics, thecontributors address topics such as the Wife of Bath's opinions on marital eroticism, the role of clothing and nudity, the tension between eroticism and transgression, the interplay between religion and the erotic, and the hedonistic horrors of the cannibalistic Giant of Mont St Michel. Amanda Hopkins teaches in the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies and the department of French at the University of Warwick. Cory James Rushton is in the Department of English at St. Francis Xavier University, Nova Scotia, Canada. Contributors: Anthony Bale, Jane Bliss, Michael Cichon, Thomas H. Crofts III, Alex Davis, Kristina Hildebrand, Amanda Hopkins,Simon Meecham-Jones, Sue Niebrzydowski, Margaret Robson, Robert Rouse, Cory James Rushton, Corinne Saunders.
Trade ReviewA multiplicity of perspectives on a discrete (yet vast) number of texts, many of which are romances, that lends a sense of completeness to the book as a whole. * COMITATUS *
Table of ContentsIntroduction `So wel koude he me glose': The Wife of Bath and the Eroticism of Touch - Sue Niebrzydowski The Lady's Man: Gawain as a Lover in Middle English Literature - Cory Rushton Erotic Magic: The Enchantress in Middle English Romance - Corinne Saunders `wordy vnthur wede': Clothing, Nakedness and the Erotic in some Romances of Medieval Britain - Amanda Hopkins `Some Like it Hot': The Medieval Eroticism of Heat - Robert Rouse How's Your Father? Sex and the Adolescent Girl in Sir Degarré - Margaret Robson The Female `Jewish' Libido in Medieval Culture - Anthony Bale Eros and Error: Gross Sexual Transgression in the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi - Michael Cichon Perverse and Contrary Deeds: The Giant of Mont Saint Michel and the Alliterative Morte Arthure - Thomas Howard Crofts Her Desire and His: Letters between Fifteenth-century Lovers - Kristina Hildebrand Sex in the Sight of God: Theology and the Erotic in Peter of Blois' `Grates Ago Veneri' - Simon Meecham-Jones A Fine and Private Place - Jane Bliss Erotic Historiography: Writing the Self and History in Twelfth-century Romance and the Renaissance - Alexander Davis
