Money, Commerce, and Economics in Late Medieval English Literature
Money, Commerce, and Economics in Late Medieval English Literature

Author: Craig E. Bertolet

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-02-07

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 3319719009

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This is the first collection of essays dedicated to the topics of money and economics in the English literature of the late Middle Ages. These essays explore ways that late medieval economic thought informs contemporary English texts and apply modern modes of economic analysis to medieval literature. In so doing, they read the importance and influence of historical records of practices as aids to contextualizing these texts. They also apply recent modes of economic history as a means to understand the questions the texts ask about economics, trade, and money. Collectively, these papers argue that both medieval and modern economic thought are key to valuable historical contextualization of medieval literary texts, but that this criticism can be advanced only if we also recognize the specificity of the economic and social conditions of late-medieval England.

The Theology of Debt in Late Medieval English Literature
The Theology of Debt in Late Medieval English Literature

Author: Anne Schuurman

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2023-12-31

Total Pages: 269

ISBN-13: 1009385968

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Exploring debt's permutations in Middle English texts, Anne Schuurman makes the bold claim that the capitalist spirit has its roots in Christian penitential theology. Her argument challenges the longstanding belief that faith and theological doctrine in the Middle Ages were inimical to the development of market economies, showing that the same idea of debt is in fact intrinsic to both. The double penitential-financial meaning of debt, and the spiritual paradoxes it creates, is a linchpin of scholastic and vernacular theology, and of the imaginative literature of late medieval England. Focusing on the doubleness of debt, this book traces the dynamic by which the Christian ascetic ideal, in its rejection of material profit and wealth acquisition, ends up producing precisely what it condemns. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.

The Gender of Money in Middle English Literature
The Gender of Money in Middle English Literature

Author: Diane Cady

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2019-10-01

Total Pages: 195

ISBN-13: 3030262618

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The Gender of Money in Middle English Literature: Value and Economy in Late Medieval England explores the vital and under-examined role that gender plays in the conceptualization of money and value in a period that precedes and shapes what we now recognize as the discipline of political economy. Through readings of a range of late Middle English texts, this book demonstrates the ways in which gender ideology provided a vocabulary for articulating fears and fantasies about money and value in the late Middle Ages. These ideas inform beliefs about money and value in the West, particularly in realms that are often seen as outside the sphere of economy, such as friendship, love and poetry. Exploring the gender of money helps us to better understand late medieval notions of economy, and to recognize the ways in which gender ideology continues to haunt our understanding of money and value, albeit often in occluded ways.

The Routledge Companion to Literature and Economics
The Routledge Companion to Literature and Economics

Author: Matt Seybold

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-09-17

Total Pages: 948

ISBN-13: 1317278100

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The study of literature and economics is by no means a new one, but since the financial crash of 2008, the field has grown considerably with a broad range of both fiction and criticism. The Routledge Companion to Literature and Economics is the first authoritative guide tying together the seemingly disparate areas of literature and economics. Drawing together 38 critics, the Companion offers both an introduction and a springboard to this sometimes complex but highly relevant field. With sections on "Critical traditions," "Histories," "Principles," and "Contemporary culture," the book looks at examples from Medieval and Renaissance literature through to poetry of the Great Depression and novels depicting the 2008 financial crisis. Covering topics from Austen to austerity, Marxism to modernism, the collated essays offer indispensable analysis of the relationship between literary studies and the economy. Representing a wide spectrum of approaches, this book introduces the basics of economics, while engaging with essential theory and debate. As the reality of economic hardship and disparity is widely acknowledged and spreads across disciplines, this Companion offers students and scholars a chance to enter this crucially important interdisciplinary area.

The Routledge Companion to Medieval English Literature
The Routledge Companion to Medieval English Literature

Author: Raluca Radulescu

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2022-12-30

Total Pages: 521

ISBN-13: 0429588984

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The Routledge Companion to Medieval English Literature offers a new, inclusive, and comprehensive context to the study of medieval literature written in the English language from the Norman Conquest to the end of the Middle Ages. Utilising a Trans-European context, this volume includes essays from leading academics in the field across linguistic and geographic divides. Extending beyond the traditional scholarly discussions of insularity in relation to Middle English literature and ‘isolationism’, this volume: Oversees a variety of genres and topics, including cultural identity, insular borders, linguistic interactions, literary gateways, Middle English texts and traditions, and modern interpretations such as race, gender studies, ecocriticism, and postcolonialism. Draws on the combined extensive experience of teaching and research in medieval English and comparative literature within and outside of anglophone higher education and looks to the future of this fast-paced area of literary culture. Contains an indispensable section on theoretical approaches to the study of literary texts. This Companion provides the reader with practical insights into the methods and approaches that can be applied to medieval literature and serves as an important reference work for upper-level students and researchers working on English literature.

A Cultural History of Shopping in the Middle Ages
A Cultural History of Shopping in the Middle Ages

Author: James Davis

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2022-06-02

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 1350278467

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A Cultural History of Shopping was a Library Journal Best in Reference selection for 2022. Throughout Europe, the collapse of Roman authority from the 5th century fractured existing networks of commerce and trade including shopping. The infrastructure of trade was slowly rebuilt over the centuries that followed with the growth of beach markets, emporia, seasonal fairs and periodic markets until, in the late Middle Ages, the permanent shop re-emerged as an established part of market spaces, both in towns and larger urban centers. Medieval society was a 'display culture' and by the 14th century there was a marked increase in the consumption of manufactures and imported goods among the lower classes as well as the elite. This volume surveys our understanding of medieval retail markets, shops and shopping from a range of perspectives - spatial, material culture, literary, archaeological and economic. A Cultural History of Shopping in the Middle Ages presents an overview of the period with themes addressing practices and processes; spaces and places; shoppers and identities; luxury and everyday; home and family; visual and literary representations; reputation, trust and credit; and governance, regulation and the state.

The Routledge Companion to Global Chaucer
The Routledge Companion to Global Chaucer

Author: Craig E. Bertolet

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-10-02

Total Pages: 678

ISBN-13: 1040120644

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The Routledge Companion to Global Chaucer offers 40 chapters by leading scholars working with contemporary, theoretical, and textual approaches to the poetry and prose of Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1340–1400) in a global context. This volume is an ideal starting point for beginners, offering contemporary perspectives to Chaucer both geographically and intellectually, including: • Exploration of major and lesser-known works, translations, and lyrics, such as The Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde • Spatial intersections and external forms of communication • Discussion of identities, cognitions, and patterns of thought, including gender, race, disability, science, and nature. The Routledge Companion to Global Chaucer also includes a section addressing ways of incorporating its material in the classroom to integrate global questions in the teaching of Chaucer’s works. This guide provides post-pandemic, twenty-first century readers a way to teach, learn, and write about Chaucer’s works complete with awareness of their reach, their limitations, and occlusions on a global field of culture.