Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Second Age, Middle Age, Norbert Schürer

Journal of Tolkien Research

The recent releases of the volume The Fall of Númenor and the series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power raise the question: What is the significance of the Second Age of Tolkien’s legendarium? This article suggests that Tolkien conceived of the Second Age as parallel to the Middle Ages in our world, which were the focus of his academic career in his studies of Old and Middle English language and literature. As various frameworks and overviews for the legendarium demonstrate, Tolkien thought of the Second Age, like the Middle Ages, as uniquely looking backwards and forwards …

Homoerotic Medievalism: Looking At Queer Desire In The Homosocial Relationships Of Chaucer’S “The Knight’S Tale” And Fletcher And Shakespeare’S The Two Noble Kinsmen, Juan P. Espinosa

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to explore queer interiority within the heteronormative social constructions of late medieval England. Queer interiority is not an occurrence of modernity, but rather a response to social constructions that date back to the Middle Ages. It is essential to account for queerness in the Middle Ages because authors like Chaucer promote the successive resurfacing of queer characters within heteronormative social constructions. Writing during the queer reign of Richard II, Chaucer constructs the interior identities of Palamon and Arcite as a reflection of the king and the political norms of England. Inspired by Chaucer, authors …

The Unfinished Hope Of Gower's Transgender Children, Gabrielle M.W. Bychowski

Accessus

This article examines two of Gower's tales from the Confessio Amantis that deal with trans youths: Iphis and Narcissus. Considering these two tales together, I ask the question: why does one story end with hopeful futurity for the trans masculine youth and the other end with death and the absence of futurity for the trans feminine youth. Connecting these medieval texts to premodern contexts and then with modern contexts, I map the trajectory of centuries long problems facing trans youths. In the end, I conclude that trans youth possess a healthier and more stable future when they receive trans affirming …

Shakespeare's Hamlet As A Pilgrimage Of The Soul, Joyce Ahn

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study proposes a reading of Shakespeare’s Hamlet as a pilgrimage of the soul. There has been a consistent strain in Shakespeare scholarship which seeks to understand Hamlet and its peculiarly universal appeal in terms of its evocation of the human condition. Some examples of such commentary: Hamlet abounds in the disease imagery and is suffused with a mysterious sense of doom; it is the only play in Shakespeare with an explicit reference to Christmas; it evokes the medieval cycle plays which enacted the entire salvation history from the Creation of the world to the Last Judgment; and the play …

Nowhere In The Middle Ages. Karma Lochrie. The Middle Ages Series. Philadelphia: University Of Pennsylvania Press, 2016. 270 Pp. $65., Christopher Kendrick

English: Faculty Publications and Other Works

A review of Karma Lochrie's book, Nowhere in the Middle Ages.

Grammars And Rhetorics, Ian Cornelius

English: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Grammar and rhetoric were the disciplines charged with teaching correct and effective use of language in antiquity. In the Middle Ages, these disciplines served to maintain Latin as a language of culture, religion, and administration over much of Europe. Grammatical studies flourished in medieval England following the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity. Subsequent developments in grammatical and rhetorical studies in Britain in the Middle Ages track deep changes in the social conditioning of literacy and social demands upon literacy. Among the medieval English innovations in these disciplines were the teaching of Latin as a foreign language, the cultural accommodation …

An Environmental History Of Medieval Europe By Richard C. Hoffman, Geneviève Pigeon Dr

The Goose

Review of Richard C. Hoffman's An Environmental History of Medieval Europe.

An Almost Threesome: Erotic Love Triangles And Authorial Choice In Malory’S Le Morte D’ Arthur, Maria L. Avery

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

It seems to be nearly a critically unanimous consensus that when translating Chretien de Troyes’ romance of the glorious King Arthur, Sir Thomas Malory, in his Le Morte Darthur, approaches the narrative of Sir Lancelot with the unwavering attitude that Lancelot must not only sustain the status of Arthur’s most revered knight and truest friend, but also be a true and ideal lover for Guenevere. This deep sense of friendship and comraderie between Lancelot and his king is also reflected in nearly all of the relationships between Arthur’s knights; which is, similar to de Troyes a very important component …

Idleness Working: The Discourse Of Love's Labor From Ovid Through Chaucer And Gower, Gregory Sadlek

Gregory M Sadlek

Inspired by the critical theories of M. M. Bakhtin, Idleness Working is a groundbreaking study of key works in the Western literature of love from Classical Rome to the late Middle Ages. The study focuses on the evolution of the ideologically-saturated discourse of love's labor contained in these works and thus explores them in the context of ancient and medieval theories of labor and leisure, which themselves are seen to evolve through the course of Western history. What emerges from this study is a fresh appreciation and deepened understanding of such well-known classics of love literature as Ovid's Ars amatoria …

The Black Death And Giovanni Bocaccio's The Decameron's Portrayal Of Merchant Mentality, Rachel D. Rickel

ETD Archive

Giovanni Boccaccio was a contemporary witness to the effects of the Black Death pandemic, the Yersinia pestis bacterial pandemic in Europe between the years 1346-53, causing 75 million to 200 million deaths across the continent alone. In The Decameron, Boccaccio depicts the outbreak’s high-mortality rates and how that was a catalyst for many social and cultural changes within fourteenth-century Europe. He also goes on to portray the devastating effects of death on, not only the physical bodies of people and animals, but also on their mental, emotional, and spiritual states, and how this accelerated their acceptance of the rising …

World Literature I: Beginnings To 1650, Laura Getty, Kyounghye Kwon, Rhonda Kelley, Douglass Thomson

English Open Textbooks

This peer-reviewed World Literature I anthology includes introductory text and images before each series of readings. Sections of the text are divided by time period in three parts: the Ancient World, Middle Ages, and Renaissance, and then divided into chapters by location.

World Literature I and the Compact Anthology of World Literature are similar in format and both intended for World Literature I courses, but these two texts are developed around different curricula.

Accessible files with optical character recognition (OCR) and auto-tagging provided by the Center for Inclusive Design and Innovation.

(Re)Producing (Neo)Medievalism, Kellyann Fitzpatrick

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Addressing a need that Tom Shippey calls out in his seminal essay “Medievalisms and Why They Matter,” (Re)producing (Neo)medievalism endeavors to trace connections, expose errors, and make its voice heard in regard to the ways in which the medieval is employed in academic and everyday life. Focusing on recent evolutions in articulations of the medieval, this project produces a working understanding of the term “neomedievalism” that takes into account what would be considered “popular” forms as well as scholarly treatments, and posits it as a method of reading that acknowledges its own practices as forms of neomedievalism. After surveying existing …

The Medieval Dark Horse: Challenge And Reward In The Middle English Lyric, Andrew S. Marvin

English Faculty Publications

“The Medieval Dark Horse: Challenge and Reward in the Middle English Lyric” explores the genre’s history and literary merits while addressing the question of why this valuable and extensive body of literature has largely gone untapped by scholars.

The introductory sections detail the historical and modern contexts of the lyric, including the state of scholarship, manuscripts, editions, dating issues, purpose, audience, types of lyrics, and themes. This background informs a discussion of the genre’s difficulties and offers solutions with which to counter them. Close readings of eight poems are included to exemplify the lyric’s thematic range, stylistic diversity, and literary …

The Rage Of The Wolf: Metamorphosis And Identity In Medieval Werewolf Tales., Jessica Lynne Bettini

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The metamorphosis of man to beast has fascinated audiences for millennia. The werewolves of medieval literature were forced to conform to the Church's view of metamorphosis and, in so doing, transformed from bestial and savage to benevolent and rational. Analysis of Marie de France's Bisclavret, the anonymous Arthur and Gorlagon, the Irish tale The Crop-Eared Dog, and the French roman d'aventure Guillaume de Palerne reveals insight into medieval views of change, identity, and what it meant to exist in the medieval world. Each of these tales is told from the werewolf's point of view, and in each the …

Mythology In The Middle Ages: Heroic Tales Of Monsters, Magic, And Might, Christopher R. Fee

Gettysburg College Faculty Books

Myths of gods, legends of battles, and folktales of magic abound in the heroic narratives of the Middle Ages. Mythology in the Middle Ages: Heroic Tales of Monsters, Magic, and Might describes how Medieval heroes were developed from a variety of source materials: Early pagan gods become euhemerized through a Christian lens, and an older epic heroic sensibility was exchanged for a Christian typological and figural representation of saints. Most startlingly, the faces of Christian martyrs were refracted through a heroic lens in the battles between Christian standard-bearers and their opponents, who were at times explicitly described in demonic terms. …

Review Of Elisabeth Vavra, Ed. Der Wald Im Mittelalter, Richard Utz

Medieval Institute Affiliated Faculty & Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Review Of: Elisabeth Vavra, Ed. Der Wald Im Mittelalter, Perspicuitas (2009), Richard Utz

Richard Utz

No abstract provided.

The Sleepy Hero: Romantic & Spiritual Sleep In The Gawain-Poet, Erin Kathleen Turner Hepner

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

This thesis examines two accepted styles of writing in the Middle Ages, the romance and religious genres, and what purpose they perform in the Gawain-poet’s religious poem, Patience, and his romance poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (SGGK). One recently popular line of research among medieval scholars is examining the way medieval authors, such as the Gawain-poet, combine elements of romance and spiritual writings. By funneling the Gawain-poet’s intermingling of the medieval romance and religious genres through the specific lens of sleep, which is represented differently in medieval romance texts than in medieval religious …

“Alliteration” And “Alliterative Revival.”, J. A. T. Smith

J. A. T. Smith

UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies and Brepols Publishers

Fortune Personified And The Fall (And Rise) Of Women In Chaucer's Monk's Tale And The Autobiographical Writings Of Christine De Pizan, Leona C. Fisher

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis will posit that a query of the medieval trope, Fortune, can be read as a query into femininity. Fortune is depicted with many quintessentially medieval feminine traits, and women in texts that discuss Fortune often have Fortune's traits. While texts that link Fortune and femininity usually do so to censure women, some writers turned the trope to their advantage for just the opposite purpose. Both Chaucer in the "Monk's Tale" and Christine de Pizan personify Fortune to subtly point out the flaws in antifeminist medieval view of women. This thesis explores the ways in which these writers cleverly …