History Commons^™

Toward A Dialogue With The West: The Use Of Eliot's Modernism In Al-Sayyab's City Poetry, Saddik M. Gohar

Comparative Civilizations Review

No abstract provided.

Front Matter

Quidditas

No abstract provided.

Delno C. West Award Winner (2006)

Quidditas

Margaret Harp

The West Award recognizes the most distinguished paper given by a senior scholar at the annual conference.

Temples Of Caesar: The Politics Of Renaissance Georgics Translations, Kimberly Johnson

Quidditas

Between the last years of Elizabeth I’s reign and the regicide of Charles I, three major English translations of Virgil’s middle poem, the Georgics, were published. Each translation appeared at a moment of religio-political crisis in England, a coincidence made more significant by the ambivalent political stance of Virgil’s text, which simultaneously communicates praise for Octavian and suspicion about an imperial program that disenfranchised the agricultural classes, an oversight which Virgil records in the Georgics as impiety. This paper charts the ways in which seemingly innocent translation decisions manage to perform a critical interrogation of monarchal authority, particularly as it …

William Of Auvergne And Popular Demonology, Thomas De Mayo

Quidditas

Theologian and bishop of Paris during St. Louis’ early reign, William of Auvergne (d. 1249) aimed in his life and writings to combat the myriad threats he perceived as facing Christianity. The early thirteenth century saw many potential competitors to official doctrines concerning the natural and supernatural worlds—Arabic philosophy imported into the universities, heretical attacks on the institutional church, and persistent folk beliefs and practices. William attributed these challenges to an underlying demonic conspiracy directed against humankind. This paper examines William’s treatment of popular beliefs on the Wild Hunt, a mysterious congregation of spirits, and related beliefs about female spirits …

Charlemagne’S Denarius, Constantine’S Edicule, And The Vera Crux, John F. Moffitt

Quidditas

In 806 a much-discussed silver denarius bearing the likeness of Charlemagne was issued. This is called the “temple-type” coin due to the (as yet unidentified) architectural structure illustrated on the reverse side, and which is explicitly labeled as representing the epitome of “Christian Religion.” By examining different kinds of archeological and documentary evidence, this building can now be finally identified. It is, in short, the “Edicule” built by Constantine the Great in 326 to cover the Tomb of Christ (or Holy Sepulcher) in Jerusalem.

Old Icelandic Gaglviðr, Aurelijus Vijūnas

Quidditas

This essay discusses a debated word form gaglviðr occurring in stanza 42 of the Old Icelandic poem VÄluspá 'The Prophesy of the Seeress'. The noun gaglviðr is problematic both from the semantic point of view (Old Icelandic gagl 'gosling', viðr 'tree; forest' 'gosling forest'?), and because it possesses a variant spelling galgviðr ('gallows' tree;’gallows' forest') which occurs in another manuscript containing the same poem. In the present paper, the form gaglviðr is considered to be the correct and the original form of this word, whereas the form galgviðr is interpreted as a scribal error. Various existing semantic analyses of the …

Twentieth-Century Illustrators’ Interpretations Of The Works Of Rabelais, Margaret Harp

Quidditas

Gustave Doré's mid-nineteenth-century illustrations of François Rabelais's oeuvre have become as well-known as the text itself: their fanciful details capture the literally larger-than-life personality of the French sixteenth-century humanist's protaganist-giants, Pantagruel and Gargantua. Equally intrigued by the thematic complexity and imaginative narrative of this Renaissance masterpiece, subsequent artists and illustrators of Rabelais continue to create new and unexpected artistic representations. This paper presents the illustrations of a lesser-known twentieth-century French wood engraver, Jean Chièze. His notable contributions to a 1935 commemorative edition of Pantagruel simultaneously highlight the medieval woodcut, emphasize the playful tone of Rabelais's narrative and allude to contemporary …

Rendering Shakespearean Rhetoric Visible In The Boydell Shakespeare Gallery, Katherine Kickel

Quidditas

Traditionally, the Boydell Shakespeare Gallery is considered an important moment in England’s art history narrative. In this essay, I argue that the Boydell collection also reflects a new preference for reading Shakespeare’s plays in the eighteenth century via its editorial illustration of parts of the plays that would not normally be emphasized in theatrical productions.

Review Essay: Some Thoughts On The Greater Integration Of Islamic Sources Into The Wider Framework Of Medieval History, John J. Curry

Quidditas

The study of Islam has been attracting greater interest in recent years, due to high-profile political and economic events. In addition, the rise of world history programs has generated a need for resources by which both students and faculty alike can strengthen their knowledge in this field. Still, general knowledge on the field is limited. This disparity has occurred, in part, because the field of Islamic history, especially in its formative and medieval periods, has been oriented toward specialists rather than a general audience. Often, world history sourcebooks are content to give only short selections from religious sources such as …

History As A Detective Story, James H. Forse

Quidditas

Josephine Tey (nom de plume of Elizabeth MacKintosh). The Daughter of Time, with Introduction by Robert Barnard (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995; original copyright 1951 by Elizabeth MacKintosh). 206 pages. $14.00.

Heloise And Abelard Today: A Student Response Approach, Carol Breslin, Donald F. Duclow

Quidditas

The story of Heloise and Abelard has aged remarkably well. We teach their “Personal Letters” and Abelard’s Historia calamitatum in two undergraduate courses. This article discusses an informal writing assignment, in which our students adopt the persona of Astralabe, the son of Heloise and Abelard, and write a letter to Heloise concerning his parents’ lives and loves. Often students read the correspondence through the filter of contemporary experience. They consider Abelard’s behavior as patriarchal and boorish, and object to what they see as Heloise’s extreme humility and acceptance of the anti-feminist palaver of her day. However, when students remember and …

Alan D. Breck Award Winner (2006)

Quidditas

Kimberly Johnson

The Breck Award recognizes the most distinguished paper given by a junior scholar at the annual conference.

Full Issue

Quidditas

No abstract provided.