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Geoffrey Chaucer has long been considered by the critics as the father of English poetry. However, this notion not only tends to forget a huge part of the history of Anglo-Saxon literature but also to ignore the specificities of Chaucer¿s style. Indeed, Chaucer¿s decision to write in Middle English, in a time when the hegemony of Latin and Old French was undisputed (especially at the court of Edward III and Richard II), was consistent with an intellectual movement that was trying to give back to European vernaculars the prestige necessary to a genuine cultural production, which eventually led to the emergence of romance and of the modern novel. As a result, if Chaucer cannot be thought of as the father of English poetry, he is, however, the father of English prose and one of the main artisans of what Mikhail Bakhtin called the polyphonic novel.

Beginning with the spectacle of hysteria, moving through the perversions of fetishism, masochism, and sadism, and ending with paranoia and psychosis, this book explores the ways that conflicts with the Oedipal law erupt on the body and in language in Chaucer¿s Canterbury Tales, for Chaucer¿s tales are rife with issues of mastery and control that emerge as conflicts not only between authority and experience but also between power and knowledge, word and flesh, rule books and reason, man and woman, same and other ¿ conflicts that erupt in a macabre sprawl of broken bones, dismembered bodies, cut throats, and decapitations. Like the macabre sprawl of conflict in the Canterbury Tales, this book brings together a number of conflicting modes of thinking and writing through the surprising and perhaps disconcerting use of ¿shadow¿ chapters that speak to or against the four ¿central¿ chapters, creating both dialogue and interruption.

This volume offers the author¿s central articles on the medieval and early modern history of cartography for the first time in English translation. A first group of essays gives an overview of medieval cartography and illustrates the methods of cartographers. Another analyzes world maps and travel accounts in relation to mapped spaces. A third examines land surveying, cartographical practices of exploration, and the production of Portolan atlases.

A "e;blind spot"e; suggests an obstructed view, or partisan perception, or a localized lack of understanding. Just as the brain "e;reads"e; the "e;blind spot"e; of the visual field by a curious process of readjustment, Shakespearean drama disorients us with moments of unmastered and unmasterable knowledge, recasting the way we see, know and think about knowing. Focusing on such moments of apparent obscurity, this volume puts methods and motives of knowing under the spotlight, and responds both to inscribed acts of blind-sighting, and to the text or action blind-sighting the reader or spectator. While tracing the hermeneutic yield of such occlusion is its main conceptual aim, it also embodies a methodological innovation: structured as an internal dialogue, it aims to capture, and stake out a place for, a processive intellectual energy that enables a distinctive way of knowing in academic life; and to translate a sense of intellectual "e;community"e; into print.

This volume considers the reception in the early modern period of four popular medieval myths of nationhood ¿ the legends of Brutus, Albina, Scota and Arthur ¿ tracing their intertwined literary and historiographical afterlives. The book thus speaks to several connected areas and is timely on a number of fronts: its dialogue with current investigations into early modern historiography and the period¿s relationship to its past, its engagement with pressing issues in identity and gender studies, and its analysis of the formation of British national origin stories at a time when modern Britain is seriously considering its own future as a nation.

Cognitive approaches to early medieval texts have tended to focus on the mind in isolation. By examining the interplay between mental and physical acts deployed in Old English poetry and prose, this study identifies new patterns and offers new perspectives. In these texts, the performance of right or wrong action is not linked to natural inclination dictated by birth; it is the fruit of right or wrong thinking. The mind consciously directed and controlled is open to external influences, both human and diabolical. This struggle to produce right thought and action reflects an emerging democratization of heroism that crosses societal and gender boundaries, becoming intertwined with socio-political, soteriological, and cultural meaning. In a study of influential prose texts, including the Alfredian translations and the sermons of Ælfric, alongside close readings of three poems from different genres - The Seafarer, The Battle of Maldon, and Juliana -, Ponirakis demonstrates how early medieval authors create patterns of interaction between the mental and the physical. These provide hidden keys to meaning which, once found, unlock new readings of much studied texts. In addition, these patterns of balance, distribution, and opposition, reveal a startling similarity of approach across genre and form, taking the discussion of the early medieval conception of the mind, soul, and emotion, not to mention conventional generic divisions, onto new ground.

This book addresses the status and relevance of iconography and iconology in the contemporary scholarly study of medieval art. There is a widespread tendency among art historians today to regard the study of iconography and iconology in the tradition of Erwin Panofsky as an outmoded and trivial pursuit. Nonetheless, Panofsky's three-level interpretative model sits firmly in the methodological toolkit of art history and remains a common point of reference among adherents and adversaries alike. Iconography and iconology demand to be taken seriously as a feature of continued praxis in the discipline. The book contains a collection of essays on the validity of various approaches toward the interpretation of meaning in medieval art today. These essays either demonstrate the continued usefulness of iconography and iconology as analytical strategies, or propose alternative approaches to the investigation of meaning in the art of the Middle Ages.

Travel narratives and historical works shaped the perception of Muslims and the East in the Victorian and post-Victorian periods. Analyzing the discourses on Muslims which originated in the European Middle Ages, the first part of the book discusses the troubled legacy of the encounters between the East and the West and locates the nineteenth-century texts concerning the Saracens and their lands in the liminal space between history and fiction. Drawing on the nineteenth-century models, the second part of the book looks at fictional and non-fictional works of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century which re-established the "Oriental obsession," stimulating dread and resentment, and even more strongly setting the Civilized West against the Barbaric East. Here medieval metaphorical enemies of Mankind - the World, the Flesh and the Devil - reappear in different contexts: the world of immigration, of white women desiring Muslim men, and the present-day "freedom fighters."

The Vikings Reimagined explores the changing perception of Norse and Viking cultures across different cultural forms, and the complex legacy of the Vikings in the present day. Bringing together experts in literature, history and heritage engagement, this highly interdisciplinary collection aims to reconsider the impact of the discipline of Old Norse Viking Studies outside the academy and to broaden our understanding of the ways in which the material and textual remains of the Viking Age are given new meanings in the present. The diverse collection draws attention to the many roles that the Vikings play across contemporary culture: from the importance of Viking tourism, to the role of Norse sub-cultures in the formation of local and international identities. Together these collected essays challenge the academy to rethink its engagement with popular reiterations of the Vikings and to reassess the position afforded to ¿reception¿ within the discipline.

When James VI of Scotland and I of England proclaimed himself King of Great Britain he proposed a merger of parliaments as he had joined two crowns in his own person ascending the throne of England in 1603. For James, the Cambro-Celtic past led to an Anglo-Scottish present, and Wales stood as the ideal.¿Although the parliamentary union of Great Britain was not initiated for another 100 years, Parliament¿s denial failed to deter James from wanting a Great Britain, and R. A.¿s play The Valiant Welshman became part of the public spectacle of unity required to nurture James¿s dream. The Valiant Welshman, the Scottish James, and the Formation of Great Britain¿considers national, regional and linguistic identity and explores how R.A.¿s play promotes Wales, serves King James and reveals what it means to be Welsh and Scots in a newly forming "Great Britain."

Anthony Munday (1560?-1633) published this English translation of a Spanish heroic romance in 1589; it follows the adventures of Palmendos on his journey to Constantinople. This is an original-spelling edition producing a reliable text, as close as possible to the author's original manuscript.

This volume contains the first critical edition of The Honourable, Pleasant and Rare Conceited Historie of Palmendos (London, 1589), a chivalric romance translated into English by Anthony Munday.

The aim of this annual journal is to provide a venue for work engaged with the methodology of using data drawn from analysis of a group or relationships between individuals to restore to view the lives of those who would otherwise remain unexamined or to yield new insight into the medieval past

Njáls saga is the best known and most highly regarded of all medieval Icelandic sagas and it occupies a special place in Icelandic cultural history. The manuscript tradition is exceptionally rich and extensive. The oldest extant manuscripts date to only a couple of decades after the sagäs composition in the late 13th century and the saga was subsequently copied by hand continuously up until the 20th century, even alongside the circulation of printed text editions in latter centuries. The manuscript corpus as a whole has great socio-historical value, showcasing the myriad ways in which generations of Icelanders interpreted the saga and took an active part in its transmission; the manuscripts are also valuable sources for evidence of linguistic change and other phenomena. The essays in this volume present new research and a range of interdisciplinary perspectives on the Njáls saga manuscripts. Many of the authors took part in the international research project "The Variance of Njáls saga" which was funded by the Icelandic Research Council from 2011-2013.

Four Middle English Charlemagne romances from the Otuel cycle: Roland and Vernagu, Otuel a Knight, Otuel and Roland, and Duke Roland and Sir Otuel of Spain. A translation of the romances' source, the Anglo-French Otinel, is also included.

ROMARD is an academic journal devoted to the study and promotion of Medieval and Renaissance drama in Europe. Previously published under the title of Research Opportunities in Renaissance Drama (RORD), the journal has been in publication since 1956. ROMARD is published annually at the University of Western Ontario.

Offering a broad overview of memorialization practices across Europe and the Mediterranean, this book examines local customs through particular case studies. These essays explore complementary themes through the lens of commemorative art, including social status; personal and corporate identities; the intersections of mercantile, intellectual, and religious attitudes; upward (and downward) mobility; and the cross-cultural exchange.

Composed for King Henry VI in the middle of the Wars of the Roses, Of Knyghthode and Bataile adapts the most widely used military manual in the Middle Ages into English verse. This edition of the poem also provides a contextualizing introduction and copious notes and glosses to assist the modern student with understanding the text.

A new edition of Of Knyghthode and Bataile, a fifteenth-century Middle English verse adaptation of the late Roman Epitoma rei militaris by Vegetius.

Consider the role, position and contributions of medieval women; the development of Christian marriage, especially in the High Middle Ages; and the secular family with its legal and emotional relationships.

Haimo of Auxerre's Commentary on the Book of Jonah was probably written as a study text for scholars in the monastery.

A "bourde" is an English comedic poem similar to a French fabliau but with a moralizing element and less of an emphasis on violence. Collection of ten Middle English bourdes, specifically designed for students, and has contextualizing introductions, copious notes, glosses, and a glossary..

At the end of the 15th century, Gavin Douglas devised his ambitious dream vision The Palyce of Honour in part to signal a new scope to Scottish literary culture. For all its comedy, it stands as a reminder to James IV of Scotland that poetry casts a powerful light upon the arts of rule. Second edition. Suitable for classrooms at all levels.

Essay honoring Bonnie Wheeler for her many scholarly achievements and her wide-ranging contributions to medieval studies in the United States. There are sections on Old and MEL, Arthuriana Then and Now, Joan of Arc Then and Now, Nuns and Spirituality, and Royal Women.

The two texts of the dialogue presented here, a Latin version printed c. 1488 and a Middle English translation printed in 1492, preserve lively, entertaining and revealing exchanges between the Old Testament wisdom figure Solomon and Marcolf, a medieval peasant who is ragged and foul-mouthed but quick-witted and verbally astute.

First modern edition of the poem since 1863, presents it to a new audience of students. Attributed to the mystic Richard Rolle, it became one of the most popular poems in medieval England and appears in more than any other Middle English poem. Extensive annotations and gloss, accessible to students at all levels in Middle English.