Literary Criticism : Medieval

In this study of vernacular French narrative from the twelfth century through the later Middle Ages, Maddox considers the construction of identity in a range of fictions. He focuses on crucial encounters, widespread in medieval literature, in which characters are informed about fundamental aspects of their own circumstances and selfhood. more...

Price: $64.00

The function of the figure of Gauvain underwent an historical change. As a courtly character in the classical romances, he reacted in the interests of Arthurian society to its deficiencies, so that the action provoked by the disturbances came to rest. In the later romances, a process of emancipation in the role of the protagonist sets in. The personal motivation connected with this role stood in conflict with the function of the figure of Gauvain as established in the tradition of the genre, and this led to problems of causality in the texts. Despite this process of emancipation, however, the figure remained remarkably stable in a consistent narrative model. In this model, Chrétien de Troyes had set the figure up as an antagonist to that of the protagonist and the figure of Keus, the other courtly character. This model describes the deployment and of the various figures and their tendency to act in particular ways, and could be verified in all of Chrétien’s romances as a basic structure of Gauvain’s actions, but showed itself to be a particular motivation for his actions in the romances with Gauvain's quest. more...

Price: $104.00

Although closely focused on the remarkable Hebrew First-Crusade narratives, Robert Chazan's new interpretation of these texts is anything but narrow, as his title, God, Humanity, and History, strongly suggests. The three surviving Hebrew accounts of the crusaders' devastating assaults on Rhineland Jewish communities during the spring of 1096 have been examined at length, but only now can we appreciate the extent to which they represent their turbulent times. more...

Price: $15.95

Wace's Roman de Rou is both a valuable historical document and an important work of French literature. Composed during the 1160s and 1170s, it relates the origins of Normandy from the time of Hasting and Rollo (Rou) and continues as far as the battle of Tinchebray in 1106. more...

Price: $40.00

Although the question of humour in the surviving corpus of Old English literature has rarely been discussed, the potential for analyzing this literature in terms of its humor is in fact considerable. In the essays especially commissioned for this volume, the first book-length treatment of Anglo-Saxon humor, eight of the foremost scholars in the field use different approaches to explore humor in the surviving literature of Anglo-Saxon England, in such works as Beowulf and The Battle of Maldon, the riddles of the Exeter book, and Old English saints' lives. more...

Price: $52.50