Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Arts and Humanities Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Western Michigan University

Book Gallery

2019

Discipline
Keyword
Publication

Articles 1 - 19 of 19

Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

The Feeling Heart In Medieval And Early Modern Europe: Meaning, Embodiment, And Making, Katie Barclay, Bronwyn Reddan Dec 2019

The Feeling Heart In Medieval And Early Modern Europe: Meaning, Embodiment, And Making, Katie Barclay, Bronwyn Reddan

Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

The heart is an iconic symbol in the medieval and early modern European world. In addition to being a physical organ, it is a key conceptual device related to emotions, cognition, the self and identity, and the body. The heart is read as a metaphor for human desire and will, and situated in opposition to or alongside reason and cognition. In medieval and early modern Europe, the “feeling heart”—the heart as the site of emotion and emotional practices—informed a broad range of art, literature, music, heraldry, medical texts, and devotional and ritual practices. This multidisciplinary collection brings together art historians, …


The Horse In Premodern European Culture, Anastasija Ropa Dec 2019

The Horse In Premodern European Culture, Anastasija Ropa

Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

This volume provides a unique introduction to the most topical issues, advances, and challenges in medieval horse history. Medievalists who have a long-standing interest in horse history, as well as those seeking to widen their understanding of horses in medieval society will find here informed and comprehensive treatment of chapters from disciplines as diverse as archaeology, legal, economic and military history, urban and rural history, art and literature. The themes range from case studies of saddles and bridles, to hippiatric treatises, to the medieval origins of dressage. It shows the ubiquitous – and often ambiguous – role of the horse …


Late Anglo-Saxon Prayer In Practice: Before The Books Of Hours, Kate Thomas Dec 2019

Late Anglo-Saxon Prayer In Practice: Before The Books Of Hours, Kate Thomas

Richard Rawlinson Center Series

This monograph examines the practice of Anglo-Saxon prayer outside of the communal liturgy. With a particular emphasis on its practical aspects, it considers how small groups of prayers were elaborated into complex programs for personal devotion, resulting in the forerunners of the Special Offices. With examples being taken chiefly from major eleventh-century collections of prayers, liturgy, and medical remedies, the methodologies of Anglo-Saxon compilers are examined, followed by five chapters on specialist kinds of prayer: to the Trinity and saints, for liturgical feasts and the canonical hours, to the Holy Cross, for protection and healing, and confessions. Analyzing prayer in …


The Performance Tradition Of The Medieval English University: The Works Of Thomas Chaundler, Thomas Meacham Dec 2019

The Performance Tradition Of The Medieval English University: The Works Of Thomas Chaundler, Thomas Meacham

Early Drama, Art, and Music

Contrary to previous scholarship, which has claimed that university drama did not occur at the English universities before the Tudor period, Meacham argues that there was a vibrant tradition of performance throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. He suggests an earlier tradition has not been recognized because, in addition to the false assumption that medieval pedagogy cannot support such activity, the full range of medieval performance practices or "texts," beyond the traditional play text, have not been considered. This book takes as its focus one of the last medieval university plays, Thomas Chaundler’s Liber apologeticus de omni statu humanae naturae …


Greeks And Trojans On The Early Modern English Stage, Lisa Hopkins Dec 2019

Greeks And Trojans On The Early Modern English Stage, Lisa Hopkins

Late Tudor and Stuart Drama

No story was more interesting to Shakespeare and his contemporaries than that of Troy, partly because the story of Troy was in a sense the story of England, since the Trojan prince Aeneas was supposedly the ancestor of the Tudors. This book explores the wide range of allusions to Greece and Troy in plays by Shakespeare and his contemporaries, looking not only at plays actually set in Greece or Troy but also those which draw on characters and motifs from Greek mythology and the Trojan War. Texts covered include Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida, Othello, Hamlet, The Winter’s …


Inscribing Knowledge In The Medieval Book: The Power Of Paratexts, Rosalind Brown-Grant, Patrizia Carmassi, Gisela Drossbach, Anne D. Hedeman, Victoria Turner, Iolanda Ventura Dec 2019

Inscribing Knowledge In The Medieval Book: The Power Of Paratexts, Rosalind Brown-Grant, Patrizia Carmassi, Gisela Drossbach, Anne D. Hedeman, Victoria Turner, Iolanda Ventura

Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

This collection of essays examines how the paratextual apparatus of medieval manuscripts both inscribes and expresses power relations between the producers and consumers of knowledge in this important period of intellectual history. It seeks to define which paratextual features—annotations, commentaries, corrections, diagrams, glosses, images, prologues, rubrics, and titles—are common to manuscripts from different branches of medieval knowledge and how they function in any particular discipline. It reveals how these visual expressions of power that organize and compile thought on the written page are consciously applied, negotiated or resisted by authors, scribes, artists, patrons, and readers. This collection, which brings together …


The Vikings Reimagined: Reception, Recovery, Engagement, Tom Birkett, Roderick Dale Nov 2019

The Vikings Reimagined: Reception, Recovery, Engagement, Tom Birkett, Roderick Dale

Northern Medieval World

Rediscovering the Vikings 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 …


Monsters In Society: Alterity, Transgression, And The Use Of The Past In Medieval Iceland, Rebecca Merkelbach Nov 2019

Monsters In Society: Alterity, Transgression, And The Use Of The Past In Medieval Iceland, Rebecca Merkelbach

Northern Medieval World

Dragons, giants, and the monsters of learned discourse are rarely encountered in the Sagas of Icelanders, and therefore, the general teratological focus on physical monstrosity yields only limited results when applied to them. This, however, does not equal an absence of monstrosity — it only means that monstrosity is conceived of differently. This book shifts the view of monstrosity from the physical to the social, accounting for the unique social circumstances presented in the Íslendingasögur and demonstrating how closely interwoven the social and the monstrous are in this genre. Employing literary and cultural theory as well as anthropological and historical …


Polemic And Literature Surrounding The French Wars Of Religion, Jeff Kendrick, Katherine S. Maynard Sep 2019

Polemic And Literature Surrounding The French Wars Of Religion, Jeff Kendrick, Katherine S. Maynard

Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

Polemic and Literature Surrounding the French Wars of Religion demonstrates that literature and polemic interacted constantly in sixteenth-century France, constructing ideological frameworks that defined the various groups to which individuals belonged and through which they defined their identities. Contributions explore both literary texts and more intentionally polemical texts that fall outside of the traditional literary genres. Engaging the continuous casting and recasting of opposing worldviews, this collection of essays examines literature's use of polemic and polemic's use of literature as seminal intellectual developments stemming from the religious and social turmoil that characterized this period in France.


Architectural Rhetoric In Shakespeare And Spenser, Jennifer C. Vaught Sep 2019

Architectural Rhetoric In Shakespeare And Spenser, Jennifer C. Vaught

Research in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

Jennifer C. Vaught illustrates how architectural rhetoric in Shakespeare and Spenser provides a bridge between the human body and mind and the nonhuman world of stone and timber. The recurring figure of the body as a besieged castle in Shakespeare’s drama and Spenser’s allegory reveals that their works are mutually based on medieval architectural allegories exemplified by the morality play The Castle of Perseverance. Intertextual and analogous connections between the generically hybrid works of Shakespeare and Spenser demonstrate how they conceived of individuals not in isolation from the physical environment but in profound relation to it. This book approaches …


The Saga Of The Jómsvikings: A Translation For Students, Alison Finlay, Þórdís Edda Jóhannesdóttir Jul 2019

The Saga Of The Jómsvikings: A Translation For Students, Alison Finlay, Þórdís Edda Jóhannesdóttir

Northern Medieval World

Unique among the Icelandic sagas, part-history, part-fiction, the Saga of the Jómsvikings tells of a legendary band of vikings, originally Danish, who established an island fortress of the Baltic coast and launched and ultimately lost their heroic attack on the pagan ruler of Norway in the late tenth century. The saga's account of their stringent warrior code, fatalistic adherence to their own reckless vows and declarations of extreme courage as they face execution articulates a remarkable account of what it meant to be a viking. This translation presents the longest and earliest text of the saga, never before published in …


Carolingian Commentaries On The Apocalypse By Theodulf And Smaragdus, Francis X. Gumerlock Jun 2019

Carolingian Commentaries On The Apocalypse By Theodulf And Smaragdus, Francis X. Gumerlock

TEAMS Commentary Series

In the early ninth-century Theodulf of Orleans and Smaragdus of Saint Mihiel served as advisers to Charlemagne. This book provides English translations of a Latin commentary on the Apocalypse written by Theodulf and three homilies on the Apocalypse by Smaragdus. A comprehensive essay introduces these texts, their authors, sources, and place in ninth-century biblical exegesis.


Henry Vii's London In The Great Chronicle, Julia Boffey Jun 2019

Henry Vii's London In The Great Chronicle, Julia Boffey

TEAMS Documents of Practice

This modernized extract from The Great Chronicle of London covers the reign of England’s first Tudor king, Henry VII (1485-1509). It gives an eye-witness account of events in London, and of news from elsewhere, from the viewpoint of a well-to- do citizen who was closely involved in civic administration. It describes many notable public events: riots and uprisings, executions, coronations, royal marriages and funerals, and ceremonial activities involving the mayor and aldermen. Its year by year entries also cover matters like the weather, the cost of living, taxes, and the effects of building work undertaken in the city. Although its …


Darkness, Depression, And Descent In Anglo-Saxon England, Ruth Wehlau Jun 2019

Darkness, Depression, And Descent In Anglo-Saxon England, Ruth Wehlau

Richard Rawlinson Center Series

This collection of essays examines the motifs of darkness, depression, and descent in both literal and figurative manifestations within a variety of Anglo-Saxon texts, including the Old English Consolation of Philosophy, Beowulf, Life of Saint Guthlac, the Junius manuscript, the Wonders of the East, and the Battle of Maldon. Essays deal with such topics as cosmic emptiness, descent into the grave, and recurrent grief. In their analyses, the essays reveal the breadth of this imagery in Anglo-Saxon literature as it is used to describe thought and emotion, as well as the limits to knowledge and …


The Shapes Of Early English Poetry: Style, Form, History, Eric Weiskott, Irina Dumitrescu Apr 2019

The Shapes Of Early English Poetry: Style, Form, History, Eric Weiskott, Irina Dumitrescu

Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

This volume contributes to the study of early English poetics. In these essays, several related approaches and fields of study radiate outward from poetics, including stylistics, literary history, word studies, gender studies, metrics, and textual criticism. By combining and redirecting these traditional scholarly methods, as well as exploring newer ones such as object-oriented ontology and sound studies, these essays demonstrate how poetry responds to its intellectual, literary, and material contexts. The contributors propose to connect the small (syllables, words, and phrases) to the large (histories, emotions, faiths, secrets). In doing so, they attempt to work magic on the texts they …


Ballads Of The North, Medieval To Modern: Essays Inspired By Larry Syndergaard, Sandra Ballif Straubhaar, Richard Firth Green Apr 2019

Ballads Of The North, Medieval To Modern: Essays Inspired By Larry Syndergaard, Sandra Ballif Straubhaar, Richard Firth Green

Festschriften, Occasional Papers, and Lectures

This volume is intended as a belated but heartfelt thank-you and Gedenkschrift to the late Larry Syndergaard (1936-2015), long-time professor of English at Western Michigan University and Fellow of the Kommission für Volksdichtung (International Ballad Commission). Larry’s contributions down the decades to ballad studies--particularly Scandinavian and Anglophone--included dozens of papers and articles, as well as his supremely useful book, English Translations of the Scandinavian Medieval Ballads. As David Atkinson and Thomas A. McKean of the Kommission have written (May 2015): “Larry... was a sound scholar with a penetrating mind which he used to support, encourage and befriend others, rather …


The Unruly Womb In Early Modern English Drama: Plotting Women's Biology On The Stage, Ursula Potter Mar 2019

The Unruly Womb In Early Modern English Drama: Plotting Women's Biology On The Stage, Ursula Potter

Late Tudor and Stuart Drama

This study provides an accessible, informative and entertaining introduction to women’s sexual health as presented on the early modern stage, and how dramatists coded for it. Beginning with the rise of green sickness (the disease of virgins) from its earliest reference in drama in the 1560s, Ursula Potter traces a continuing fascination with the womb by dramatists through to the oxymoron of the chaste sex debate in the 1640s. She illuminates how playwrights both satirized and perpetuated the notion of the womb’s insatiable appetite.


Early Modern Britain’S Relationship To Its Past: The Historiographical Fortunes Of The Legends Of Brute, Albina, And Scota, Philip M. Robinson-Self Jan 2019

Early Modern Britain’S Relationship To Its Past: The Historiographical Fortunes Of The Legends Of Brute, Albina, And Scota, Philip M. Robinson-Self

Research in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

This volume considers the reception in the early modern period of four popular medieval myths of nationhood—the legends of Brutus, Albina, and Scota—tracing their intertwined literary and historiographical afterlives. The book is particularly timely in 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 British national origin stories at a time when modern Britain is considering its own future as a nation.


Blind Spots Of Knowledge In Shakespeare And His World, Subha Mukherji Jan 2019

Blind Spots Of Knowledge In Shakespeare And His World, Subha Mukherji

Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

A "blind spot" suggests an obstructed view, or partisan perception, or a localized lack of understanding. Just as the brain "reads" the "blind spot" 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 …