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The Werewolf in Medieval Romance argues that in Guillaume de Palerne, Bisclavret, Arthur and Gorlagon, Melion, William of Palerne, and Biclarel the werewolf’s identity incorporates a variety of assemblages, including human and animal bodies, and physical spaces and the animate and inanimate beings or objects therein. Whether in lupine or human form, the werewolf’s identity is a perpetual becoming, one with extensive queer, and thus disruptive, potential. Additionally, the werewolf’s identity incorporates political systems and violence, specifically through his status as a knight, prince, and/or king. He is an expression of sovereign power and an extension of the identity the sovereign presents, often functioning as a blunt instrument of the crown.
Recounts a Jewish-born Catholic priest's effort to prove he was Catholic to anyone who doubted him, including himself.
Studies of conflict in medieval history and related disciplines have recently come to focus on wars, feuds, rebellions, and other violent matters. While those issues are present here, to form a backdrop, this volume brings other forms of conflict in this period to the fore. With these assembled essays on conflict and collaboration in the Iberian Peninsula, it provides an insight into key aspects of the historical experience of the Iberian kingdoms during the Middle Ages. Ranging in focus from the fall of the Visigothic kingdom and the arrival of significant numbers of Berber settlers to the functioning of the Spanish Inquisition right at the end of the Middle Ages, the articles gathered here look both at cross-ethnic and interreligious meetings in hostility or fruitful cohabitation. The book does not, however, forget intra-communal relations, and consideration is given to the mechanisms within religious and ethnic groupings by which conflict was channeled and, occasionally, collaboration could ensue.
This Companion presents fifteen original and engaging essays by leading scholars on one of the most influential genres of Western literature. Chapters describe the origins of early verse romance in twelfth-century French and Anglo-Norman courts and analyze the evolution of verse and prose romance in France, Germany, England, Italy, and Spain throughout the Middle Ages. The volume introduces a rich array of traditions and texts and offers fresh perspectives on the manuscript context of romance, the relationship of romance to other genres, popular romance in urban contexts, romance as mirror of familiar and social tensions, and the representation of courtly love, chivalry, 'other' worlds and gender roles. Together the essays demonstrate that European romances not only helped to promulgate the ideals of elite societies in formation, but also held those values up for questioning. An introduction, a chronology and a bibliography of texts and translations complete this lively, useful overview.
Why did Saint Augustine ask God to “circumcise [his] lips”? Why does Sir Gawain cut off the Green Knight’s head on the Feast of the Circumcision? Is Chaucer’s Wife of Bath actually—as an early glossator figures her—a foreskin? And why did Ezra Pound claim that he had incubated The Waste Land inside of his uncut member? In this little book, A. W. Strouse excavates a poetics of the foreskin, uncovering how Patristic theologies of circumcision came to structure medieval European literary aesthetics. Following the writings of Saint Paul, “circumcision” and “uncircumcision” become key terms for theorizing language—especially the dichotomies between the mere text and its extended exegesis, between brevity and longwindedness, between wisdom and folly. Form and Foreskin looks to three works: a peculiar story by Saint Augustine about a boy with the long foreskin; Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; and Chaucer’s Wife of Bath’s Tale. By examining literary scenes of cutting and stretching, Strouse exposes how Patristic treatments of circumcision queerly govern medieval poetics.
Includes music.
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