"This study looks at a wide range of medieval Englisih romance texts, including the works of Chaucer and Malory, from a broad cultural perspective, to show that while they employ magic in order to create exotic, escapist worlds, they are also grounded in a sense of possibility, and reflect a complex web of inherited and current ideas." --Book Jacket.
This volume comprises selected papers of SEM VI to VIII (Studientage Englisches Mittelalter), held at Jena, Bochum, and Zurich between 2004 and 2007. It presents a representative cross-section of topics in the field of English medieval studies in Germany and Switzerland. The spectrum ranges from philological textual criticism, cultural studies centring around the history of ideas, questions of historical writing, alliteration, and the depiction of the monstrous in early modern literature, to philological and linguistic approaches focussing on morphology and grammar.
A revisionary account of the powerful myths that grew up around the production and reception of the great medieval poem. Also available as Open Access.
Hosting the Monster responds to the call of the monstrous with, not rejection, but invitation. Positing the monster as that which defies classification, the essays in this collection are an ongoing engagement with that which lies outside of established boundaries. With chapters ranging from the monstrous mother or the deformed child to subjectivity in transition, this volume is not only of interest to film and gender scholars and literary and cultural theorists but also students of popular culture or horror. Its wide appeal stems from its invitation both to entertain the monster and to widen the call to and the listening for the monsters that have not yet, and perhaps must not yet, come calling back. This sense of hospitality and non-hostility is one guiding principle of this collection, suggesting that the ability to survey and research the otherwise may reveal more about the subjectivity of the self through the wisdom of the other, however monstrous the manifestation.