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Performing the Middle Ages from Beowulf to Othello (Hardcover)
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Performing the Middle Ages from Beowulf to Othello (Hardcover)
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Performing the Middle Ages from 'Beowulf' to 'Othello' traces the
dialogic nature of the relationship between the Middle Ages and
modernity. Arguing that modern beliefs in the alterity of the
Middle Ages stem from the Middle Ages' own processes of
self-representation, Johnston explores varieties of nostalgia
through a wide selection of texts. This volume spans an extensive
chronological period with a view to demonstrating how our notions
of the medieval have been crucially informed by the past itself.
The study is focused on works which stage that popular literary
archetype - the nostalgic figure of the aristocratic warrior - and
argues that it is this image that provides a structural model for
so many modern perspectives on the Middle Ages. And yet, in the
Middle Ages this model was being deconstructed as it was also being
generated. By moving from the self-consciously archaic heroism of
Beowulf to the scathing comment on chivalric narrative presented in
Chaucer's 'Knight's Tale', Johnston's analysis offers an intriguing
insight into the way medieval texts engage in a continual aesthetic
and ideological critique of their own cultural moment. Using Sir
Gawain and the Green Knight and the Alliterative Morte Arthure as
examples of an incisive critique of the cult of subjectivity and of
a highly self-conscious desire for tradition, Johnston extends his
analysis to the early seventeenth century, and explores the ways in
which Shakespeare's Othello brilliantly deconstructs the very
concept of 'Renaissance Man'. With its interest in issues of
subjectivity, textual performance, and the ideological
self-awareness of medieval culture, Performing the Middle Ages
provides a scholarly and compelling investigation into the Middle
Ages' ability both to understand itself and to shape (post)modern
notions of the medieval.
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