Your Search Results

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        November 2015

        Annotated Chaucer bibliography

        1997–2010

        by Mark Allen, Stephanie Amsel, Anke Bernau

      • Trusted Partner
        Literary studies: classical, early & medieval
        July 2013

        Pulp fictions of medieval England

        Essays in popular romance

        by Edited by Nicola McDonald

        Pulp Fictions of Medieval England demonstrates that popular romance not only merits and rewards serious critical attention, but that we ignore it to the detriment of our understanding of the complex and conflicted world of medieval England.

      • Trusted Partner
        Literary studies: classical, early & medieval
        July 2013

        Pulp fictions of medieval England

        Essays in popular romance

        by Edited by Nicola McDonald

      • Trusted Partner
        Literary studies: classical, early & medieval
        July 2012

        Pulp fictions of medieval England

        Essays in popular romance

        by Edited by Nicola McDonald

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        May 2016

        Between earth and heaven

        Liminality and the Ascension of Christ in Anglo-Saxon literature

        by Anke Bernau, Johanna Kramer

        Between earth and heaven examines the teaching of the theology of Christ's ascension in Anglo-Saxon literature, offering the only comprehensive examination of how patristic ascension theology is transmitted, adapted and taught to Anglo-Saxon audiences. This book argues that Anglo-Saxon authors recognise the Ascension as fundamentally liminal in nature, as concerned with crossing boundaries and inhabiting dual states. In their teaching, authors convert abstract theology into concrete motifs reflecting this liminality, such as the gates of heaven and Christ's footprints. By examining a range of liminal imagery, Between earth and heaven demonstrates the consistent sophistication and unity of Ascension theology in such diverse sources as Latin and Old English homilies, religious poetry, liturgical practices, and lay popular beliefs and rituals. This study not only refines our evaluation of Anglo-Saxon authors' knowledge of patristic theology and their process of source adaptation, but also offers a new understanding of the methods of religious instruction and uses of religious texts in Anglo-Saxon England, capturing their lived significance to contemporary audiences.

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        May 2016

        Between earth and heaven

        Liminality and the Ascension of Christ in Anglo-Saxon literature

        by Anke Bernau, Johanna Kramer

        Between earth and heaven examines the teaching of the theology of Christ's ascension in Anglo-Saxon literature, offering the only comprehensive examination of how patristic ascension theology is transmitted, adapted and taught to Anglo-Saxon audiences. This book argues that Anglo-Saxon authors recognise the Ascension as fundamentally liminal in nature, as concerned with crossing boundaries and inhabiting dual states. In their teaching, authors convert abstract theology into concrete motifs reflecting this liminality, such as the gates of heaven and Christ's footprints. By examining a range of liminal imagery, Between earth and heaven demonstrates the consistent sophistication and unity of Ascension theology in such diverse sources as Latin and Old English homilies, religious poetry, liturgical practices, and lay popular beliefs and rituals. This study not only refines our evaluation of Anglo-Saxon authors' knowledge of patristic theology and their process of source adaptation, but also offers a new understanding of the methods of religious instruction and uses of religious texts in Anglo-Saxon England, capturing their lived significance to contemporary audiences.

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        May 2016

        Sanctity as literature in late medieval Britain

        by Eva von Contzen, Anke Bernau, Anke Bernau

        This collection explores some of the many ways in which sanctity was closely intertwined with the development of literary strategies across a range of writings in late medieval Britain. Rather than looking for clues in religious practices in order to explain such changes, or reading literature for information about sanctity, these essays consider the ways in which sanctity - as concept and as theme - allowed writers to articulate and to develop further their 'craft' in specific ways. While scholars in recent years have turned once more to questions of literary form and technique, the kinds of writings considered in this collection - writings that were immensely popular in their own time - have not attracted the same amount of attention as more secular forms. The collection as a whole offers new insights for scholars interested in form, style, poetics, literary history and aesthetics, by considering sanctity first and foremost as literature ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        September 2016

        Gesta Romanorum

        A new translation

        by Anke Bernau, Christopher Stace, Nigel Harris, Nigel Harris

        This volume contains an entirely new and accessible translation into modern English of the medieval Latin Gesta Romanorum. Based on the standard Gesta edition by Hermann Österley, it is the first such translation to appear since 1824, and the first to take appropriate account of modern scholarly priorities. The Gesta Romanorum are tales drawn from a wide variety of sources, such as classical mythology, legend and historical chronicles, and are accompanied in almost every case by allegorical Christian interpretations. They were enormously popular throughout the Middle Ages, and had a huge influence on many other authors, such as Boccaccio, Chaucer, Gower, Hoccleve, Shakespeare, Bernard Shaw and Thomas Mann. The Gesta is therefore a foundational work of western European literature - as well as one whose lively, well-crafted and often entertaining narratives hold a continuing appeal for contemporary readers. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        May 2017

        Writing the Welsh borderlands in Anglo-Saxon England

        by Lindy Brady, T. J. H. McCarthy, Stephen Mossman, Carrie Benes, Jochen Schenk

        This is the first study of the Anglo-Welsh border region in the period before the Norman arrival in England, from the fifth to the twelfth centuries. Its conclusions significantly alter our current picture of Anglo/Welsh relations before the Norman Conquest by overturning the longstanding critical belief that relations between these two peoples during this period were predominately contentious. Writing the Welsh borderlands in Anglo-Saxon England demonstrates that the region which would later become the March of Wales was not a military frontier in Anglo-Saxon England, but a distinctively mixed Anglo-Welsh cultural zone which was depicted as a singular place in contemporary Welsh and Anglo-Saxon texts. This study reveals that the region of the Welsh borderlands was much more culturally coherent, and the impact of the Norman Conquest on it much greater, than has been previously realised.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        May 2017

        Writing the Welsh borderlands in Anglo-Saxon England

        by Lindy Brady, T. J. H. McCarthy, Stephen Mossman, Carrie Benes, Jochen Schenk

        This is the first study of the Anglo-Welsh border region in the period before the Norman arrival in England, from the fifth to the twelfth centuries. Its conclusions significantly alter our current picture of Anglo/Welsh relations before the Norman Conquest by overturning the longstanding critical belief that relations between these two peoples during this period were predominately contentious. Writing the Welsh borderlands in Anglo-Saxon England demonstrates that the region which would later become the March of Wales was not a military frontier in Anglo-Saxon England, but a distinctively mixed Anglo-Welsh cultural zone which was depicted as a singular place in contemporary Welsh and Anglo-Saxon texts. This study reveals that the region of the Welsh borderlands was much more culturally coherent, and the impact of the Norman Conquest on it much greater, than has been previously realised.

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        July 2017

        Nonhuman voices in Anglo-Saxon literature and material culture

        by James Paz, Anke Bernau, David Matthews

        Nonhuman voices in Anglo-Saxon literature and material culture uncovers the voice and agency possessed by nonhuman things across Anglo-Saxon literature and material culture. It makes a new contribution to 'thing theory' and rethinks conventional divisions between animate human subjects and inanimate nonhuman objects in the early Middle Ages. Anglo-Saxon writers and craftsmen describe artefacts and animals through riddling forms or enigmatic language, balancing an attempt to speak and listen to things with an understanding that these nonhumans often elude, defy and withdraw from us. But the active role that things have in the early medieval world is also linked to the Germanic origins of the word, where a þing is a kind of assembly, with the ability to draw together other elements, creating assemblages in which human and nonhuman forces combine.

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        July 2017

        Nonhuman voices in Anglo-Saxon literature and material culture

        by James Paz, Anke Bernau, David Matthews

        Nonhuman voices in Anglo-Saxon literature and material culture uncovers the voice and agency possessed by nonhuman things across Anglo-Saxon literature and material culture. It makes a new contribution to 'thing theory' and rethinks conventional divisions between animate human subjects and inanimate nonhuman objects in the early Middle Ages. Anglo-Saxon writers and craftsmen describe artefacts and animals through riddling forms or enigmatic language, balancing an attempt to speak and listen to things with an understanding that these nonhumans often elude, defy and withdraw from us. But the active role that things have in the early medieval world is also linked to the Germanic origins of the word, where a þing is a kind of assembly, with the ability to draw together other elements, creating assemblages in which human and nonhuman forces combine.

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        January 2018

        The church as sacred space in Middle English literature and culture

        by Laura Varnam, David Matthews, Anke Bernau

        This book presents a new and exciting approach to the medieval church that examines literary texts, visual decorations, ritual performance and lived experience in the production of sanctity. The meaning of the church - as building, idea and community - was intensely debated in the fourteenth- and fifteenth-centuries and the book explores what was at stake not only for the church's sanctity but for the identity of the parish community as a result. Focusing on pastoral material used to teach the laity, this study shows how the church's status as a sacred space at the heart of the congregation was dangerously, but profitably, dependent upon lay practice. The sacred and profane were inextricably linked and, paradoxically, the church is shown to thrive on the sacrilegious challenge of lay misbehavior and sin.

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        January 2018

        The church as sacred space in Middle English literature and culture

        by Laura Varnam, David Matthews, Anke Bernau

        This book presents a new and exciting approach to the medieval church that examines literary texts, visual decorations, ritual performance and lived experience in the production of sanctity. The meaning of the church - as building, idea and community - was intensely debated in the fourteenth- and fifteenth-centuries and the book explores what was at stake not only for the church's sanctity but for the identity of the parish community as a result. Focusing on pastoral material used to teach the laity, this study shows how the church's status as a sacred space at the heart of the congregation was dangerously, but profitably, dependent upon lay practice. The sacred and profane were inextricably linked and, paradoxically, the church is shown to thrive on the sacrilegious challenge of lay misbehavior and sin.

      • Trusted Partner
        Literary studies: classical, early & medieval
        July 2013

        Monasticism in late medieval England, c.1300–1535

        by Martin Heale

        Monasticism in late medieval England, c.1300-1535 provides the first collection of translated sources on this subject. The volume covers both male and female houses of all orders and sizes, and offers a range of new perspectives on the character and reputation of English monasteries in the later middle ages. The first section surveys the internal affairs of English monasteries, including recruitment, the monastic economy, standards of observance and learning. The second part looks at the relations between monasteries and the world, exploring the monastic contribution to late medieval religion and society and lay attitudes towards monks and nuns in the years leading up to the Dissolution. This book is an ideal introduction to this topic for students and scholars. Supported by an extended and accessible introduction this collection of documents gives an unrivalled insight into the last phase of monastic life in medieval England.

      • Trusted Partner
        Literary studies: classical, early & medieval
        July 2013

        Greenery

        Ecocritical readings of late medieval English literature

        by Gillian Rudd

        Humankind has always been fascinated by the world in which it finds itself, and puzzled by its relations to it. Today that fascination is often expressed in what is now called 'green' terms, reflecting concerns about the non-human natural world, puzzlement about how we relate to it, and anxiety about what we, as humans, are doing to it. So called green or eco-criticism acknowledges this concern. Greenery reaches back and offers new readings of English texts, both known and unfamiliar, informed by eco-criticism. After considering general issues pertaining to green criticism, Greenery moves on to a series of individual chapters arranged by theme (earth, trees, wilds, sea, gardens and fields) which provide individual close readings of selections from such familiar texts as Malory's Morte D'Arthur, Chaucer's Knight's and Franklin's Tales, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Langland's Piers Plowman. These discussions are contextualized by considering them alongside hitherto marginalized texts such as lyrics, Patience and the romance Sir Orfeo. The result is a study which reinvigorates our customary reading of late Middle English literary texts while also allows us to reflect upon the vibrant new school of eco-criticism itself.

      • Trusted Partner
        Literary studies: classical, early & medieval
        July 2013

        Greenery

        Ecocritical readings of late medieval English literature

        by Gillian Rudd

        Humankind has always been fascinated by the world in which it finds itself, and puzzled by its relations to it. Today that fascination is often expressed in what is now called 'green' terms, reflecting concerns about the non-human natural world, puzzlement about how we relate to it, and anxiety about what we, as humans, are doing to it. So called green or eco-criticism acknowledges this concern. Greenery reaches back and offers new readings of English texts, both known and unfamiliar, informed by eco-criticism. After considering general issues pertaining to green criticism, Greenery moves on to a series of individual chapters arranged by theme (earth, trees, wilds, sea, gardens and fields) which provide individual close readings of selections from such familiar texts as Malory's Morte D'Arthur, Chaucer's Knight's and Franklin's Tales, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Langland's Piers Plowman. These discussions are contextualized by considering them alongside hitherto marginalized texts such as lyrics, Patience and the romance Sir Orfeo. The result is a study which reinvigorates our customary reading of late Middle English literary texts while also allows us to reflect upon the vibrant new school of eco-criticism itself.

      • Trusted Partner
        Literary studies: classical, early & medieval
        July 2012

        Greenery

        Ecocritical readings of late medieval English literature

        by Gillian Rudd

        Humankind has always been fascinated by the world in which it finds itself, and puzzled by its relations to it. Today that fascination is often expressed in what is now called 'green' terms, reflecting concerns about the non-human natural world, puzzlement about how we relate to it, and anxiety about what we, as humans, are doing to it. So called green or eco-criticism acknowledges this concern. Greenery reaches back and offers new readings of English texts, both known and unfamiliar, informed by eco-criticism. After considering general issues pertaining to green criticism, Greenery moves on to a series of individual chapters arranged by theme (earth, trees, wilds, sea, gardens and fields) which provide individual close readings of selections from such familiar texts as Malory's Morte D'Arthur, Chaucer's Knight's and Franklin's Tales, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Langland's Piers Plowman. These discussions are contextualized by considering them alongside hitherto marginalized texts such as lyrics, Patience and the romance Sir Orfeo. The result is a study which reinvigorates our customary reading of late Middle English literary texts while also allows us to reflect upon the vibrant new school of eco-criticism itself.

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