Search results for ""Author R. Howard Bloch""

The forerunner of our digital age, a French poem about a shipwreck published in 1897, with its mind-bending possibilities of being read up and down, backwards and forwards, even sideways, launched modernism. Stéphane Mallarmé’s “One Toss of the Dice” has for over a century tantalised everyone from physicists to composers to graphic artists. R. Howard Bloch decodes the poem still considered among the most enigmatic ever written. Creating a shimmering portrait of Belle-époque Paris with a cast of exotic characters—Napoleon III, the Lumiere brothers, Auguste Rodin, Berthe Morisot, even an expatriate American dentist, Bloch positions Mallarmé as the spiritual giant of late-nineteenth-century France. Featuring a new translation of the poem by J.D. McClatchy, One Toss of the Dice reveals how a masterpiece shaped our perceptual world.

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This is an account of Jacques-Paul Migne, an entrepreneur of the 19th century. A priest in Orleans from 1824 to 1833, Migne then moved to Paris, where, in the space of a decade, he built one of the most extensive publishing ventures of all time. His assembly-line production and marketing of the massive editions of the Church Fathers placed him at the forefront of France's new commerce. Characterized by the police as one of the great "schemers" of the century, this priest-entrepreneur put the most questionable of business practices in the service of his devotion to Catholicism. Part detective novel, part morality tale, Bloch's narrative should interest scholars of 19th-century French intellectual history and also general readers interested in the history of publishing.

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This text provides an account of the abbe Jacques-Paul Migne, one of the great entrepreneurs of the 19th century. A priest in Orleans from 1824 to 1833, Migne then moved to Paris, where, in the space of a decade, he built one of the most extensive publishing ventures of all time. Using the latest innovations in print technology, advertising and merchandising, the abbe's assembly-line production and innovative marketing of the massive editions of the Church Fathers placed him at the forefront of France's new commerce. Characterized by the police as one of the great "schemers" of the century, this priest-entrepreneur put the most questionable of business practices in the service of his devotion to Catholicism. Part detective novel, part morality tale, Bloch's narrative should be of interest to scholars of 19th-century French intellectual history, as well as to general readers interested in the history of publishing.

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"The Anonymous Marie de France" offers a fundamental reconception of the person generally assumed to be the first woman writer in French, the woman now referred to as Marie de France. Written by renowned medievalist R. Howard Bloch, it is the first book to consider all of the writing ascribed to Marie, including her famous "Lais", her 103 animal fables, and the earliest vernacular, "Saint Patrick's Purgatory". Marie is, Bloch asserts, one of the most self-conscious, sophisticated, and disturbing figures of her time - a writer whose works reveal an acute awareness not only of her role in the preservation of cultural memory, but also of the transformative psychological, social, and political effects of her writing within an oral tradition. "The Anonymous Marie de France" recovers the central achievements of one of the most pivotal figures in French literature. It is a study that will be of enormous value to medievalists, literary scholars, historians of France, and anyone interested in the advent of female authorship.

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Until now the advent of Western romantic love has been seen as a liberation from--or antidote to--ten centuries of misogyny. In this major contribution to gender studies, R. Howard Bloch demonstrates how similar the ubiquitous antifeminism of medieval times and the romantic idealization of woman actually are. Through analyses of a broad range of patristic and medieval texts, Bloch explores the Christian construction of gender in which the flesh is feminized, the feminine is aestheticized, and aesthetics are condemned in theological terms. Tracing the underlying theme of virginity from the Church Fathers to the courtly poets, Bloch establishes the continuity between early Christian antifeminism and the idealization of woman that emerged in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In conclusion he explains the likely social, economic, and legal causes for the seeming inversion of the terms of misogyny into those of an idealizing tradition of love that exists alongside its earlier avatar until the current era. This startling study will be of great value to students of medieval literature as well as to historians of culture and gender.

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Eminent French literature professor R. Howard Bloch has become renowned for his insider tours of Paris, given to college students abroad. Long sought after for his encyclopaedic knowledge of French cathedrals, Bloch has at last decided to share his intimate knowledge with a wider audience. Here, six cathedrals—Saint-Denis, Chartres, Sainte-Chapelle, Reims, Amiens and Notre-Dame—are illumined in magnificent detail as Bloch, taking us from the High Middle Ages to the devastating fire that set Notre-Dame ablaze in 2019, traces the evolution of each in turn. Contextualising the cathedrals within the annals of French history, Bloch animates the past with lush evocations of architectural splendour—high-flying buttresses and jewel-encrusted shrines, hidden burial grounds and secret chambers—and thrilling tales of kingly intrigue, audacious architects and the meeting of aristocratic and everyday life. Complete with the author’s own photographs, Paris and Her Cathedrals vitally enhances our understanding of the history of Paris and its environs.

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Composed between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, these virtually unknown erotic and satiric poems lie at the root of the Western comic tradition. Passed down by the anticlerical middle classes of medieval France, The Fabliaux depicts priapic priests, randy wives, and their cuckolded husbands in tales that are shocking even by today’s standards. Chaucer and Boccaccio borrowed heavily from these riotous tales, which were the wit of the common man rebelling against the aristocracy and Church in matters of food, money, and sex. Containing 69 poems with a parallel Old French text, The Fabliaux comes to life in a way that has never been done in nearly eight hundred years.

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In the early 1990s, Stephen Nichols introduced the term "new medievalism" to describe an alternative to the traditional philological approach to the study of the romantic texts in the medieval period. While the old approach focused on formal aspects of language, this new approach was historicist and moved beyond a narrow focus on language to examine the broader social and cultural contexts in which literary works were composed and disseminated. Within the field, this transformation of medieval studies was as important as the genetic revolution to the study of biology and has had an enormous influence on the study of medieval literature. Rethinking the New Medievalism offers both a historical account of the movement and its achievements while indicating - in Nichols' innovative spirit - still newer directions for medieval studies. The essays deal with questions of authorship, theology, and material philology and are written by members of a wide philological and critical circle that Nichols nourished for forty years. Daniel Heller-Roazen's essay, for example, demonstrates the conjunction of the old philology and the new. In a close examination of the history of the words used for maritime raiders from Ancient Greece to the present (pirate, plunderer, bandit), Roazen draws a fine line between lawlessness and lawfulness, between judicial action and war, between war and public policy. Other contributors include Jack Abecassis, Marina Brownlee, Jacqueline Cerquiglini-Toulet, Andreas Kablitz, and Ursula Peters.

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In the early 1990s, Stephen Nichols introduced the term "new medievalism" to describe an alternative to the traditional philological approach to the study of the romantic texts in the medieval period. While the old approach focused on formal aspects of language, this new approach was historicist and moved beyond a narrow focus on language to examine the broader social and cultural contexts in which literary works were composed and disseminated. Within the field, this transformation of medieval studies was as important as the genetic revolution to the study of biology and has had an enormous influence on the study of medieval literature. Rethinking the New Medievalism offers both a historical account of the movement and its achievements while indicating - in Nichols' innovative spirit - still newer directions for medieval studies. The essays deal with questions of authorship, theology, and material philology and are written by members of a wide philological and critical circle that Nichols nourished for forty years. Daniel Heller-Roazen's essay, for example, demonstrates the conjunction of the old philology and the new. In a close examination of the history of the words used for maritime raiders from Ancient Greece to the present (pirate, plunderer, bandit), Roazen draws a fine line between lawlessness and lawfulness, between judicial action and war, between war and public policy. Other contributors include Jack Abecassis, Marina Brownlee, Jacqueline Cerquiglini-Toulet, Andreas Kablitz, and Ursula Peters.

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