Book Description

As distinct from the many recent collections and studies of medieval literature and culture that have focused on gender and sexuality as their major themes, this collection considers and serves to re-think and re-situate religion and sexuality together. Including 'traditional' works such as Chaucer and the Pearl-poet, as well as less well known and studied texts - such as alchemical texts and the Wohunge group - the contributors here focus on the meeting point of these two often-examined concepts. They seek an understanding of where sex and religion distinguish themselves from one another, and where they do not. This volume locates the Divine and the Erotic within the continuum of experience and devotion that characterize the paradox of the medieval world. Not merely original in their approaches, these authors seek a new vision of how these two inter-connected themes - sexuality and the Divine - meet, connect, distinguish themselves, and merge within medieval life, language, and literature.