Kategoria BISAC: Literary Criticism >> Medieval

Around the year 1400, the poet Christine de Pizan initiated a public debate in France over the literary "truth" and merit of the Roman of the Rose, perhaps the most renowned work of the French Middle Ages. She argued against what she considered to be misrepresentations of female virtue and vice in the Rose. Her bold objections aroused the support and opposition of some of the period's most famous intellectuals, notable Jean Gerson, whose sermons on the subject are important literary documents. "The Quarrel of the Rose" is the name given by modern scholars to the collection of these and...

This book studies the phenomena of monsters and marvels from the time of Pliny the Elder through the 14th century.

This book tells the story of the early modern astronomer Johannes Kepler's Somnium, which has been regarded by science historians and literary critics alike as the first true example of science fiction. Kepler began writing his complex and heavily-footnoted tale of a fictional Icelandic astronomer as an undergraduate and added to it throughout his life. The Somnium fuses supernatural and scientific models of the cosmos through a satirical defense of Copernicanism that features witches, lunar inhabitants, and a daemon who speaks in the empirical language of modern science....

Medieval Sexuality: A Casebook is a fascinating collection featuring both new and established experts in the field. The volume includes 11 original essays by Ross Balzaretti, Philip Crispin, Dominic Janes, Hugh Kennedy, A. Lynn Martin, Kim M. Phillips, Samantha J. E. Riches, Joyce E. Salisbury, David Santiuste, and the volume editors, April Harper and Caroline Proctor. The authors explore a variety of sources, contributing work on a diverse range of topics including: sources for sexuality in Late Lombard Italy; the problematic reception of early medieval penitentials by modern...

From Chretien de Troyes Terry includes an early work, Philomena, here translated into verse for the first time. The other great writer of this period was Marie de France, the first woman in the European narrative tradition. Lanval is newly translated for this...