Monsters, Gender and Sexuality in Medieval English Literature PDF Download
Are you looking for read ebook online? Search for your book and save it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Download Monsters, Gender and Sexuality in Medieval English Literature PDF full book. Access full book title Monsters, Gender and Sexuality in Medieval English Literature by Dana Oswald. Download full books in PDF and EPUB format.
Author: Dana Oswald
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1843842327
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 245
Get Book Here
Book Description
A gendered reading of monster and the monstrous body in medieval literature. Monsters abound in Old and Middle English literature, from Grendel and his mother in Beowulf to those found in medieval romances such as Sir Gowther. Through a close examination of the way in which their bodies are sexed and gendered, and drawing from postmodern theories of gender, identity, and subjectivity, this book interrogates medieval notions of the body and the boundaries of human identity. Case studies of Wonders of the East, Beowulf, Mandeville's Travels, the Alliterative Morte Arthure, and Sir Gowther reveal a shift in attitudes toward the gendered and sexed body, and thus toward identity, between the two periods: while Old English authors and artists respond to the threat of the gendered, monstrous form by erasing it, Middle English writers allow transgressive and monstrous bodies to transform and therefore integrate into society. This metamorphosis enables redemption for some monsters, while other monstrous bodies become dangerously flexible and invisible, threatening the communities they infiltrate. These changing cultural reactions to monstrous bodies demonstrate the precarious relationship between body and identity in medieval literature. DANA M. OSWALD is Assistant Professor of English, University of Wisconsin-Parkside.
Author: Dana Oswald
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1843842327
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 245
Get Book Here
Book Description
A gendered reading of monster and the monstrous body in medieval literature. Monsters abound in Old and Middle English literature, from Grendel and his mother in Beowulf to those found in medieval romances such as Sir Gowther. Through a close examination of the way in which their bodies are sexed and gendered, and drawing from postmodern theories of gender, identity, and subjectivity, this book interrogates medieval notions of the body and the boundaries of human identity. Case studies of Wonders of the East, Beowulf, Mandeville's Travels, the Alliterative Morte Arthure, and Sir Gowther reveal a shift in attitudes toward the gendered and sexed body, and thus toward identity, between the two periods: while Old English authors and artists respond to the threat of the gendered, monstrous form by erasing it, Middle English writers allow transgressive and monstrous bodies to transform and therefore integrate into society. This metamorphosis enables redemption for some monsters, while other monstrous bodies become dangerously flexible and invisible, threatening the communities they infiltrate. These changing cultural reactions to monstrous bodies demonstrate the precarious relationship between body and identity in medieval literature. DANA M. OSWALD is Assistant Professor of English, University of Wisconsin-Parkside.
Author: Michael E. Heyes
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429588607
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 234
Get Book Here
Book Description
St. Margaret of Antioch was one of the most popular saints in medieval England and, throughout the Middle Ages, the various Lives of St. Margaret functioned as a blueprint for a virginal life and supernatural assistance to pregnant women during the dangerous process of labor. In her narrative, Margaret is accosted by various demons and, having defeated each monster in turn, she is taken to the place of her martyrdom where she prays for supernatural boons for her adherents. This book argues that Margaret’s monsters are a key element in understanding Margaret’s importance to her adherents, specifically how the sexual identities of her adherents were constructed and maintained. More broadly, this study offers three major contributions to the field of medieval studies: first, it argues for the utility of a diachronic analysis of Saints’ Lives literature in a field dominated by synchronic analyses; second, this diachronic analysis is important to interpreting the intertext of Saints’ Lives, not only between different Lives but also different versions of the same Life; and third, the approach further suggests that the most valuable socio-cultural information in hagiographic literature is found in the auxiliary characters and not in the figure of the saint him/herself.
Author: Martha A. Brozyna
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786420421
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 329
Get Book Here
Book Description
Perceptions about gender and sexuality have shaped the lives of men and women in every known culture and in every period of history. To study these perceptions one must delve into the underlying religious, social, philosophical and scientific influences. Understanding gender and sexuality during the Middle Ages requires an examination of the ideas, laws and institutions of the time--for example, the regulations of the Christian church, the anatomical studies of the medieval medical community, the chronicles of the time and the social criticism found in medieval literature. This reader brings such documents from throughout the medieval world into one collection. Representing a diverse range of ethnic, geographic and religious backgrounds, documents of the late Roman, Germanic, Anglo-Norman, Mediterranean, Byzantine, Slavic, Jewish and Islamic identities are all included. The book's chapters are organized according to nine areas--the Bible; Christian thought; chronicles; law; biology, medicine and science; literature; witchcraft and heresy; Judaism; and Islam--allowing for comparative examination of different societies and periods of the Middle Ages.
![Monster theory [electronic resource] PDF](https://books.google.com/books/content/images/frontcover/hQWa3r-vMLwC?fife=w80-h100)
Author: Jeffrey Jerome Cohen
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 1452900558
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 331
Get Book Here
Book Description
The contributors to Monster Theory consider beasts, demons, freaks and fiends as symbolic expressions of cultural unease that pervade a society and shape its collective behavior. Through a historical sampling of monsters, these essays argue that our fascination for the monstrous testifies to our continued desire to explore difference and prohibition.
Author: Jeffrey Jerome Cohen
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 9781452903668
Category : Abnormalities, Human, in literature
Languages : en
Pages : 262
Get Book Here
Book Description
Author: KellyAnn Fitzpatrick
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1843845415
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 246
Get Book Here
Book Description
The medieval in the modern world is here explored in a variety of media, from film and book to gaming.
Author: Larissa Tracy
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
ISBN: 1843843935
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 338
Get Book Here
Book Description
A new look at the way in which medieval European literature depicts torture and brutality.
Author: Rebecca Merkelbach
Publisher: Medieval Institute Publications
ISBN: 9781501518362
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 258
Get Book Here
Book Description
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 approaches, it reads the monsters of the Íslendingasögur in their literary and socio-cultural context, demonstrating that they are not distractions from feud and conflict, but that they are in fact an intrinsic part of the genre's re-imagining of the past for the needs of the present.
Author: Margery Kempe
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0140432515
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 449
Get Book Here
Book Description
The story of the eventful and controversial life of Margery Kempe - wife, mother, businesswoman, pilgrim and visionary - is the earliest surviving autobiography in English. Here Kempe (c.1373-c.1440) recounts in vivid, unembarrassed detail the madness that followed the birth of the first of her fourteen children, the failure of her brewery business, her dramatic call to the spiritual life, her visions and uncontrollable tears, the struggle to convert her husband to a vow of chastity and her pilgrimages to Europe and the Holy Land. Margery Kempe could not read or write, and dictated her remarkable story late in life. It remains an extraordinary record of human faith and a portrait of a medieval woman of unforgettable character and courage.
Author: Will Rogers
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 1501513974
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 243
Get Book Here
Book Description
This collection of essays asks contributors to take the capaciousness of the word "queer" to heart in order to think about what medieval queers would have looked like and how they may have existed on the margins and borders of dominant, normative sexuality and desire. The contributors work with recent trends in queer medieval studies, blending together modern concepts of sexuality and desire with the queer configurations of eroticism, desire, and materiality as they might have existed for medieval audiences.
