Medieval Literature

The theme of Adam's Graceis the interplay of theology and literature across a wide range of genres and vernaculars: in particular, the use of medieval literary texts to explain the balance of the Fall and Redemption, the universality of original sin, and the identity of mankind with its first parents, Adam and Eve. The process begins with the Christian tradition of apocryphal Adam-lives, which live on and develop in many vernaculars. Later, Adam is used as a literary model, on whom many well-known Christian figures of the middle ages - knights, popes, emperors, kings and saints - can be seen to be based. They include Gregorius, the `medieval Oedipus', whose case demonstrates the resolution of the paradox of the felix culpa; Parzival, searching for the Holy Grail and for God in the hostile world into which he has been ejected; and the many medieval figures (literary and even historical) associated with the legends of leprosy, blood and healing which reflect the sacrifice in the Redemption. The last part of the book looks at the drama, first of all the medieval representations of the Fall and the Passion, and then the rather different portrayal of Adam on stage in the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation.BRIAN MURDOCH is Professor of German at Stirling University.

This original and authoritative text reveals how chivalry was part of the problem of violence in medieval Europe, not merely its solution. The ideal was to internalize restraint in knights, but a close reading of chivalric literature shows chivalry also praised heroic violence by knights. This fascinating book lays bare the conflicts and paradoxes surrounding the concept of chivalry in medieval Europe.

This volume brings together specialists from different areas of medieval literary study to focus on attitudes toward women during the Middle Ages. The essays range from Old English literature to the Spanish Inquisition and encompass such genres as romance, chronicles, hagiography, and legal documents. In its use of well-known authors (Chaucer and Christine de Pizan) and lesser-known writers, this collection provides a rich and useful survey for researchers in women's studies and medieval literature.

Gestures and looks played an even more important role in public and private exchanges of medieval society, than they do today. Gestures meant more than words, for example, in ceremonies of homage and fealty. In this compelling study, medievalist Burrow examines the role of non-verbal communication in a range of narrative texts, including Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, the anonymous Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Malory's Morte D'arthur, the romances of Chrétien de Troyes, the prose Lancelot, Boccaccio's Il Filostrato, and Dante's Commedia.

Because animals are neither wholly similar to, nor entirely different from, human beings, they have provided men and women with an endlessly fruitful point of departure from which to explore what it means to be human. The way in which human identity is inextricably bound up with the animal kingdom is particularly evident in medieval hagiography and romance (arguably the two most popular and prestigious genres of medieval literature), where the holiness of saints and the heroism of knights is frequently revealed through their miraculous encounters with wild beasts. Through an analysis of these literary sources, the book explores the broad range of attitudes towards animals and the natural world that were current in western Europe during the later middle ages. It argues that through their depictions of animals, medieval writers were not only able to reflect upon their own humanity, but were also able to explore the meaning of more abstract values and ideas (such as civility, sanctity and nobility) that were central to the culture of the time.Dr DAVID SALTER is a Lecturer in English at the University of Edinburgh.