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Books > Arts & Architecture > History of art / art & design styles > 500 CE to 1400
Richly-illustrated consideration of the meaning of the carvings of
non-human beings, from centaurs to eagles, found in ecclesiastical
settings. Representations of monsters and the monstrous are common
in medieval art and architecture, from the grotesques in the
borders of illuminated manuscripts to the symbol of the "green
man", widespread in churches and cathedrals. These mysterious
depictions are frequently interpreted as embodying or mitigating
the fears symptomatic of a "dark age". This book, however,
considers an alternative scenario: in what ways did monsters in
twelfth-century sculpture help audiences envision, perhaps even
achieve, various ambitions? Using examples of Romanesque sculpture
from across Europe, with a focus on France and northern Portugal,
the author suggests that medieval representations of monsterscould
service ideals, whether intellectual, political, religious, and
social, even as they could simultaneously articulate fears; he
argues that their material presence energizes works of art in
paradoxical, even contradictory ways. In this way, Romanesque
monsters resist containment within modern interpretive categories
and offer testimony to the density and nuance of the medieval
imagination. KIRK AMBROSE is Associate Professor & Chair,
Department of Art and Art History, University of Colorado Boulder.
The sacred and the secular in medieval literature have too often
been perceived as opposites, or else relegated to separate but
unequal spheres. In Medieval Crossover: Reading the Secular against
the Sacred, Barbara Newman offers a new approach to the many ways
that sacred and secular interact in medieval literature, arguing
that (in contrast to our own cultural situation) the sacred was the
normative, unmarked default category against which the secular
always had to define itself and establish its niche. Newman refers
to this dialectical relationship as "crossover"-which is not a
genre in itself, but a mode of interaction, an openness to the
meeting or even merger of sacred and secular in a wide variety of
forms. Newman sketches a few of the principles that shape their
interaction: the hermeneutics of "both/and," the principle of
double judgment, the confluence of pagan material and Christian
meaning in Arthurian romance, the rule of convergent idealism in
hagiographic romance, and the double-edged sword in parody.
Medieval Crossover explores a wealth of case studies in French,
English, and Latin texts that concentrate on instances of paradox,
collision, and convergence. Newman convincingly and with great
clarity demonstrates the widespread applicability of the crossover
concept as an analytical tool, examining some very disparate works.
These include French and English romances about Lancelot and the
Grail; the mystical writing of Marguerite Porete (placed in the
context of lay spirituality, lyric traditions, and the Romance of
the Rose); multiple examples of parody (sexually obscene,
shockingly anti-Semitic, or cleverly litigious); and Rene of
Anjou's two allegorical dream visions. Some of these texts are
scarcely known to medievalists; others are rarely studied together.
Newman's originality in her choice of these primary works will
inspire new questions and set in motion new fields of exploration
for medievalists working in a large variety of disciplines,
including literature, religious studies, history, and cultural
studies.
In Miserere Mei, Clare Costley King'oo examines the critical
importance of the Penitential Psalms in England between the end of
the fourteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century. During
this period, the Penitential Psalms inspired an enormous amount of
creative and intellectual work: in addition to being copied and
illustrated in Books of Hours and other prayer books, they were
expounded in commentaries, imitated in vernacular translations and
paraphrases, rendered into lyric poetry, and even modified for
singing. Miserere Mei explores these numerous transformations in
materiality and genre. Combining the resources of close literary
analysis with those of the history of the book, it reveals not only
that the Penitential Psalms lay at the heart of Reformation-age
debates over the nature of repentance, but also, and more
significantly, that they constituted a site of theological,
political, artistic, and poetic engagement across the many
polarities that are often said to separate late medieval from early
modern culture. Miserere Mei features twenty-five illustrations and
provides new analyses of works based on the Penitential Psalms by
several key writers of the time, including Richard Maidstone,
Thomas Brampton, John Fisher, Martin Luther, Sir Thomas Wyatt,
George Gascoigne, Sir John Harington, and Richard Verstegan. It
will be of value to anyone interested in the interpretation,
adaptation, and appropriation of biblical literature; the
development of religious plurality in the West; the emergence of
modernity; and the periodization of Western culture. Students and
scholars in the fields of literature, religion, history, art
history, and the history of material texts will find Miserere Mei
particularly instructive and compelling.
Essays centred round the representation of weaving, both real and
imagined, in the early middle ages. The triple themes of textile,
text, and intertext, three powerful and evocative subjects within
both Anglo-Saxon studies and Old English literature itself, run
through the essays collected here. Chapters evoke the semantic
complexities of textile references and images drawn from the Bayeux
Tapestry, examine parallels in word-woven poetics, riddling texts,
and interwoven homiletic and historical prose, and identify
iconographical textures in medieval art. The volume thus considers
the images and creative strategies of textiles, texts, and
intertexts, generating a complex and fascinating view of the
material culture and metaphorical landscape of the Anglo-Saxon
peoples. It is therefore a particularly fitting tribute to
Professor Gale R. Owen-Crocker, whose career and lengthy list of
scholarly works have centred on her interests in the meaning and
cultural importance of textiles, manuscripts and text, and
intertextual relationships between text and textile. MAREN CLEGG
HYER is Associate Professor and Graduate Coordinator in the
Department of English at Valdosta State University; JILL FREDERICK
is Professor of English at Minnesota State University Moorhead.
Contributors: Marilina Cesario, Elizabeth Coatsworth, Martin Foys,
Jill Frederick, Joyce Hill, Maren Clegg Hyer, Catherine E. Karkov,
Christina Lee, Michael Lewis, Robin Netherton, Carol Neuman de
Vegvar, Donald Scragg, Louise Sylvester, Paul Szarmach, Elaine
Treharne.
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Inferno
(Hardcover)
Dante Alighieri; Translated by J Simon Harris
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R862
R723
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In this authoritative, lively book, the celebrated Italian novelist
and philosopher Umberto Eco presents a learned summary of medieval
aesthetic ideas. Juxtaposing theology and science, poetry and
mysticism, Eco explores the relationship that existed between the
aesthetic theories and the artistic experience and practice of
medieval culture. "[A] delightful study. . . . [Eco's] remarkably
lucid and readable essay is full of contemporary relevance and
informed by the energies of a man in love with his subject."
-Robert Taylor, Boston Globe "The book lays out so many exciting
ideas and interesting facts that readers will find it gripping."
-Washington Post Book World "A lively introduction to the subject."
-Michael Camille, The Burlington Magazine "If you want to become
acquainted with medieval aesthetics, you will not find a more
scrupulously researched, better written (or better translated),
intelligent and illuminating introduction than Eco's short volume."
-D. C. Barrett, Art Monthly
Objects of Translation offers a nuanced approach to the
entanglements of medieval elites in the regions that today comprise
Afghanistan, Pakistan, and north India. The book--which ranges in
time from the early eighth to the early thirteenth
centuries--challenges existing narratives that cast the period as
one of enduring hostility between monolithic "Hindu" and "Muslim"
cultures. These narratives of conflict have generally depended upon
premodern texts for their understanding of the past. By contrast,
this book considers the role of material culture and highlights how
objects such as coins, dress, monuments, paintings, and sculptures
mediated diverse modes of encounter during a critical but neglected
period in South Asian history. The book explores modes of
circulation--among them looting, gifting, and trade--through which
artisans and artifacts traveled, remapping cultural boundaries
usually imagined as stable and static. It analyzes the relationship
between mobility and practices of cultural translation, and the
role of both in the emergence of complex transcultural identities.
Among the subjects discussed are the rendering of Arabic sacred
texts in Sanskrit on Indian coins, the adoption of Turko-Persian
dress by Buddhist rulers, the work of Indian stone masons in
Afghanistan, and the incorporation of carvings from Hindu and Jain
temples in early Indian mosques. Objects of Translation draws upon
contemporary theories of cosmopolitanism and globalization to argue
for radically new approaches to the cultural geography of premodern
South Asia and the Islamic world.
The Stammheim Missal is one of the most visually dazzling and
theologically ambitious works of German Romanesque art. Containing
the text recited by the priest and the chants sung by the choir at
mass, the manuscript was produced in Lower Saxony around 1160 at
Saint Michael's Abbey at Hildesheim, a celebrated abbey in medieval
Germany.
This informative volume features color illustrations of all the
manuscript's major decorations. The author surveys the manuscript,
its illuminations, and the circumstances surrounding its creation,
then explores the tradition of the illumination of mass books and
the representation of Jewish scriptures in Christian art.
Teviotdale then considers the iconography of the manuscript's
illuminations, identifies and translates many of its numerous Latin
inscriptions, and finally considers the missal and its visually
sophisticated and religiously complex miniatures as a whole.
The long and vibrant history of north-eastern England has left rich
material deposits in the form of buildings, works of art, books and
other artefacts. This heritage is examined here in fifteen studies,
ranging from the sculpture of the Roman occupation through the
monuments and architecture of the Anglo-Saxon and Norman periods,
to the manuscripts and fortified houses of the later Middle Ages.
The monasteries at Hexham, Lindisfarne and Tynemouth, and the City
of Newcastle itself, are all subjected to individual analysis, and
there are papers on Alnwick and Warkworth castles, the great keep
at Newcastle, the coffin of St Cuthbert and the Lindisfarne
Gospels. The expert opinions presented here are intended to
stimulate and advance scholarly debate on the material culture of a
region which has played a critical role in English history, and
whose broad and varied profile still offers many opportunities for
critical inquiry.
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