A Companion to Wace


Book Description

Table of contents




A Companion to Geoffrey of Monmouth


Book Description

A Companion to Geoffrey of Monmouth brings together scholars from a range of disciplines to provide an updated scholarly introduction to all aspects of his work. Arguably the most influential secular writer of medieval Britain, Geoffrey (d. 1154) popularized Arthurian literature and left an indelible mark on European romance, history, and genealogy. Despite this outsized influence, Geoffrey’s own life, background, and motivations are little understood. The volume situates his life and works within their immediate historical context, and frames them within current critical discussion across the humanities. By necessity, this volume concentrates primarily on Geoffrey’s own life and times, with the reception of his works covered by a series of short encyclopaedic overviews, organized by language, that serve as guides to further reading. Contributors are Jean Blacker, Elizabeth Bryan, Thomas H. Crofts, Siân Echard, Fabrizio De Falco, Michael Faletra, Ben Guy, Santiago Gutiérrez García, Nahir I. Otaño Gracia, Paloma Gracia, Georgia Henley, David F. Johnson, Owain Wyn Jones, Maud Burnett McInerney, Françoise Le Saux, Barry Lewis, Coral Lumbley, Simon Meecham-Jones, Paul Russell, Victoria Shirley, Joshua Byron Smith, Jaakko Tahkokallio, Hélène Tétrel, Rebecca Thomas, Fiona Tolhurst.




A Companion to Arthurian Literature


Book Description

This Companion offers a chronological sweep of the canon of Arthurian literature - from its earliest beginnings to the contemporary manifestations of Arthur found in film and electronic media. Part of the popular series, Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture, this expansive volume enables a fundamental understanding of Arthurian literature and explores why it is still integral to contemporary culture. Offers a comprehensive survey from the earliest to the most recent works Features an impressive range of well-known international contributors Examines contemporary additions to the Arthurian canon, including film and computer games Underscores an understanding of Arthurian literature as fundamental to western literary tradition




A Companion to Gottfried Von Strassburg's "Tristan"


Book Description

The legend of Tristan and Isolde -- the archetypal narrative about the turbulent effects of all-consuming, passionate love -- achieved its most complete and profound rendering in the German poet Gottfried von Strassburg's verse romance Tristan (ca. 1200-1210). Along with his great literary rival Wolfram von Eschenbach and his versatile predecessor Hartmann von Aue, Gottfried is considered one of three greatest poets produced by medieval Germany, and over the centuries his Tristan has lost none of its ability to attract with the beauty of its poetry and to challenge -- if not provoke -- with its sympathetic depiction of adulterous love. The essays, written by a dozen leading Gottfried specialists in Europe and North America, provide definitive treatments of significant aspects of this most important and challenging high medieval version of the Tristan legend. They examine aspects of Gottfried's unparalleled narrative artistry; the important connections between Gottfried's Tristan and the socio-cultural situation in which it was composed; and the reception of Gottfried's challenging romance both by later poets in the Middle Ages and by nineteenth- and twentieth-century authors, composers, and artists -- particularly Richard Wagner. The volume also contains new interpretations of significant figures, episodes, and elements (Riwalin and Blanscheflur, Isolde of the White Hands, the Love Potion, the performance of love, the female figures) in Gottfried's revolutionary romance, which provocatively elevates a sexual, human love to a summum bonum. Will Hasty is Professor of German at the University of Florida. He is the editor of Companion to Wolfram's "Parzival," (Camden House, 1999).




Lives, Identities and Histories in the Central Middle Ages


Book Description

Offers a new take on the identities and life histories of medieval people, in their multi-layered and sometimes contradictory dimensions.




Reading La Amon's Brut: Approaches and Explorations


Book Description

Preliminary material /Editors Reading La3amon's -- INTRODUCTION /ROSAMUND ALLEN , JANE ROBERTS and CAROLE WEINBERG -- DID LAWMAN NOD, OR IS IT WE THAT YAWN? /ROSAMUND ALLEN -- THE BRUT AS SAXON LITERATURE: THE NEW PHILOLOGISTS READ LAWMAN /HARUKO MOMMA -- “ÞE TIDEN OF ÞISSE LONDE” - FINDING AND LOSING WALES IN LA3AMON'S BRUT /SIMON MEECHAM-JONES -- THE SEVERN: BARRIER OR HIGHWAY? /ANDREW WEHNER -- THE POLITICAL NOTION OF KINGSHIP IN LA3AMON'S BRUT /ERIC STANLEY -- QUEER MASCULINITY IN LAWMAN'S BRUT /JOHN BRENNAN -- LA3AMON'S LEIR: LANGUAGE, SUCCESSION, AND HISTORY /KENNETH J. TILLER -- LOSING THE PAST: CEZAR'S MOMENT OF TIME IN LAWMAN'S BRUT /JOSEPH D. PARRY -- LAWMAN, BEDE, AND THE CONTEXT OF SLAVERY /DANIEL DONOGHUE -- DRINKING OF BLOOD, BURNING OF WOMEN /ANDREW BREEZE -- THE CORONATION OF ARTHUR AND GUENEVERE IN GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH'S HISTORIA REGUM BRITANNIAE, WACE'S ROMAN DE BRUT, AND LAWMAN'S BRUT /CHARLOTTE A.T. WULF -- LA3AMON'S GESTURES: BODY LANGUAGE IN THE BRUT /BARRY WINDEATT -- CONQUEST BY WORD: THE MEETING OF LANGUAGES IN LA3AMON'S BRUT /HANNAH MCKENDRICK BAILEY -- A TALE OF TWO CITIES: LONDON AND WINCHESTER IN LA3AMON'S BRUT /IAN KIRBY -- MAPPING THE NATIONAL NARRATIVE: PLACE-NAME ETYMOLOGY IN LA3AMON'S BRUT AND ITS SOURCES /JOANNA BELLIS -- THE LEXICAL FIELD “WARRIOR” IN LA3AMON'S BRUT - A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE TWO VERSIONS /CHRISTINE ELSWEILER -- THE LANGUAGE OF LAW: LOND AND HOND IN LA3AMON'S BRUT /DEBORAH MARCUM -- FRIÐ AND GRIÐ: LA3AMON AND THE LEGAL LANGUAGE OF WULFSTAN /SCOTT KLEINMAN -- LA3AMON'S PROSODY: CALIGULA AND OTHO - METRES APART /ERIK KOOPER -- GETTING LA3AMON'S BRUT INTO SHARPER FOCUS /JANE ROBERTS -- JULIUS CAESAR AND THE LANGUAGE OF HISTORY IN LA3AMON'S BRUT /CAROLE WEINBERG -- LA3AMON'S URSULA AND THE INFLUENCE OF ROMAN EPIC /NEIL CARTLIDGE -- CONSTRUCTING TONWENNE: A GESTURE AND ITS HISTORY /GAIL IVY BERLIN -- WACE TO LA3AMON VIA WALDEF /JUDITH WEISS -- TRANSLATING ENGLAND IN MEDIEVAL ICELAND: GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH'S HISTORIA REGUM BRITANNIE AND BRETA SQGUR /SARAH BACCIANTI -- LA3AMON'S WELSH /JENNIFER MILLER -- THE WISDOM OF HINDSIGHT IN LA3AMON AND SOME CONTEMPORARIES /M. LEIGH HARRISON -- READING THE LANDSCAPES OF LA3AMON'S ARTHUR: PLACE, MEANING AND INTERTEXTUALITY /GARETH GRIFFITH -- LA3AMON'S BRUT AND THE VERNACULAR TEXT: WIDENING THE CONTEXT /ELIZABETH J. BRYAN -- BIBLIOGRAPHY /Editors Reading La3amon's -- NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS /Editors Reading La3amon's -- Index /Editors Reading La3amon's.




New Medieval Literatures 16


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6 Mixed Feelings in the Middle English Charlemagne Romances: Emotional Reconfiguration and the Failures of Crusading Practices in the Otuel Texts -- 7 Circularity and Linearity: The Idea of the Lyric and the Idea of the Book in the Cent Ballades of Jean le Seneschal -- 8 'What shal I calle thee? What is thy name?': Thomas Hoccleve and the Making of 'Chaucer'




Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Translation of Female Kingship


Book Description

Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Translation of Female Kingship provides the first feminist analysis of the part of The History of the Kings of Britain that most readers overlook: the reigns before and after Arthur's.




Creating Fictional Worlds


Book Description

Drawing on the literary and narrative patterns in Rashbam’s Torah Commentary this book offers a comprehensive rereading of one of the first Northern French pesha?-commentaries and shows Rashbam’s fascinating struggle to compete with the nascent vernacular literature.




The Linguistic Past in Twelfth-Century Britain


Book Description

How was the complex history of Britain's languages understood by twelfth-century authors? This book argues that the social, political and linguistic upheavals that occurred in the wake of the Norman Conquest intensified later interest in the historicity of languages. An atmosphere of enquiry fostered vernacular literature's prestige and led to a newfound sense of how ancient languages could be used to convey historical claims. The vernacular hence became an important site for the construction and memorialisation of dynastic, institutional and ethnic identities. This study demonstrates the breadth of interest in the linguistic past across different social groups and the striking variety of genre used to depict it, including romance, legal translation, history, poetry and hagiography. Through a series of detailed case studies, Sara Harris shows how specific works represent key aspects of the period's imaginative engagement with English, Brittonic, Latin and French language development.