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If terms are associated with particular historical periods, then
'polemic' is firmly rooted within early modern print culture, the
apparently inevitable result of religious controversy and the rise
of print media. Taking a broad European approach, this collection
brings together specialists on medieval as well as early modern
culture in order to challenge stubborn assumptions that medieval
culture was homogenous and characterized by consensus; and that
literary discourse is by nature 'eirenic'. Instead, the volume
shows more clearly the continuities and discontinuities, especially
how medieval discourse on the sins of the tongue continued into
early modern discussion; how popular and influential medieval
genres such as sermons and hagiography dealt with potentially
heterodox positions; and the role of literary, especially
fictional, debate in developing modes of articulating discord, as
well as demonstrating polemic in action in political and
ecclesiastical debate. Within this historical context, the position
of early modern debates as part of a more general culture of
articulating discord becomes more clearly visible. The structure of
the volume moves from an internal textual focus, where the nature
of polemic can be debated, through a middle section where these
concerns are also played out in social practice, to a more
historical group investigating applied polemic. In this way a more
nuanced view is provided of the meaning, role, and effect of
'polemic' both broadly across time and space, and more narrowly
within specific circumstances.
Essays investigating the question of time, and how it was
perceived, both in philosophical/religious terms, and in reality.
How was time experienced in the Middle Ages? What attitudes
informed people's awareness of its passing - especially when
tensions between eternity and human time shaped perceptions in
profound and often unexpected ways? Is it a human universal or
culturally specific - or both? The essays here offer a range of
perspectives on and approaches to personal, artistic, literary,
ecclesiastical and visionary responses to time during this period.
They cover a wide and diverse variety of material, from historical
prose to lyrical verse, and from liturgical and visionary writing
to textiles and images, both real and imagined, across the literary
and devotional cultures of England, Italy, Germany and Russia. From
anxieties about misspent time to moments of pure joy in the here
and now, from concerns about worldly affairs to experiences of
being freed from the trappings of time, the volume demonstrates how
medieval cultures and societies engaged with and reflected on their
own temporalities.
The volume assesses performative structures within a variety of
medieval forms of textuality, from vernacular literature to records
of parliamentary proceedings, from prayer books to musical
composition. Three issues are central to the volume: the role of
ritual speech acts; the way in which authorship can be seen as
created within medieval texts rather than as a given category;
finally, phenomena of voice, created and situated between citation
and repetition, especially in forms which appropriate and transform
literary tradition. The volume encompasses articles by historians
and musicologists as well as literary scholars. It spans European
literature from the West (French, German, Italian) to the East
(Church Slavonic), vernacular and Latin; it contrasts modes of
liturgical meditation in the Western and Eastern Church with
secular plays and songs, and it brings together studies on the
character of 'voice' in major medieval authors such as Dante with
examples of Dante-reception in the early twentieth century.
This book investigates how German-language texts from the Middle
Ages and the Early Modern Era helped to form collective and
individual identities through their handling of social norms. Using
case studies, the contributors analyze the shaping of norms for
different text types, social groups, and genders. They also define
the scope allowed by the literature for discussing, establishing,
and questioning expectations regarding social action.
The focus on inner space unites two topical areas of cultural
anthropology: space as a structural paradigm, and the focal
differentiation between the categories of a oeinnera and a oeoutera
. The literature of medieval Germany, in staging such interior
space in a variety of ways, poses questions about difference,
liminality, and transgression, and thus allows abstract concepts
and processes to be articulated: in a culture otherwise dominated
by that which is present and visible, inner space conveys notions
of psychological, cosmological or textual order.
This volume is the fruit of a symposium held in Roscrea (Ireland)
in 1994 and concentrates on literature in praise of the Virgin
Mary, chronicles, manuscripts, illustration and editing procedures.
Also dealt with are Yiddish Bible translations, religious plays and
various literary forms of veneration of the saints. The authors
referred to range from famous names such as Mechthild von
Magdeburg, Der Stricker and Priester Wernher to less familiar
figures like Wilhelm MA1/4nchner (cleric in Engelmairszell near
Pfaffenhausen on the Ilm). The collection also includes an edition
of the text "Von der seligen Schererin" (early 15th century), which
relates the visions and aural visitations experienced by a married
woman in her normal family surroundings.
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