Identifies and investigates international medievalism through three distinct strands: "Internationally Nationalist", "Someone Else's Past?", and "Activist Medievalism". Medievalism - the reception of the Middle Ages - often invokes a set of tropes generally considered 'medieval', rather than consciously engaging with medieval cultures and societies. International medievalism offers an additional interpretative layer by juxtaposing two or more national cultures, at least one of which is medieval. 'National' can be aspirational: it might refer to the area within agreed borders, or to the people who live there, but it might also describe the people who understand, or imagine, themselves to constitute a nation. And once 'medieval' becomes simply a collection of ideas, it can be re-formed as desired, cast as more geographically than historically specific, or function as a gateway to an even more nebulous past. This collection identifies and investigates international medievalism through three distinct strands, 'Internationally Nationalist', 'Someone Else's Past?', and 'Activist Medievalism', exploring medievalist media from the textual to the architectural. Subjects range from The Green Children of Woolpit to Refugee Tales, and from Viking metal to Joan of Arc. As the contributors to each section make clear, for centuries the medieval has provided material for countless competing causes and cannot be contained within historical, political, or national borders. The essays show how the medieval is repeatedly co-opted and recreated, formed as much as formative: inviting us to ask why, and in service of what.

New and fresh assessments of Malory's Morte Darthur. The essays here are devoted to that seminal Arthurian work, Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur. Developments of papers first given at the 'Malory at 550: Old and New' conference, they emphasise here the second part of its remit. Accordingly, several contributors focus new attention on Malory's style, using his stock phrases, metaphors, characterization, or manipulation of sources to argue for a deeper appreciation of his merits as an author. If, as others illustrate, Malory is a much better artist than his twentieth-century reputation allowed, then there is a renewed need to re-assess the vexed question of the possible originality of his 'Tale of Sir Gareth of Orkeney'. Similarly fresh approaches underlie those essays re-examining Malory's attitude to time and the sacred in 'The Sankgreal', the manner in which the ghosts of Lot and his sons highlight potential failures in the Round Table Oath, or the pleasures and pitfalls of Arthurian hospitality. The remaining contributions argue for new approaches to Malory's narrative gaps, Launcelot's status as a victim of sexual violence, and the importance of rejecting Victorian moral attitudes towards Gwenyvere and Isode, moralizing that still informs much recent scholarship addressing Malory's female characters. Contributors: Joyce Coleman, Elizabeth Edwards, Kristina Hildebrand, Cathy Hume, David F. Johnson, Megan Leitch, Andrew Lynch, Molly A. Martin, Cory James Rushton, Fiona Tolhurst, Michael W. Twomey

An examination of the erotic in medieval literature which includes articles on the role of clothing and nudity, the tension between eroticism and transgression and religion and the erotic. This volume examines the erotic in the literature of medieval Britain, primarily in Middle English, but also in Latin, Welsh and Old French. Seeking to discover the nature of the erotic and how it differs from modern erotics, thecontributors address topics such as the Wife of Bath's opinions on marital eroticism, the role of clothing and nudity, the tension between eroticism and transgression, the interplay between religion and the erotic, and the hedonistic horrors of the cannibalistic Giant of Mont St Michel. Amanda Hopkins teaches in the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies and the department of French at the University of Warwick. Cory James Rushton is in the Department of English at St. Francis Xavier University, Nova Scotia, Canada. Contributors: Anthony Bale, Jane Bliss, Michael Cichon, Thomas H. Crofts III, Alex Davis, Kristina Hildebrand, Amanda Hopkins,Simon Meecham-Jones, Sue Niebrzydowski, Margaret Robson, Robert Rouse, Cory James Rushton, Corinne Saunders.

An examination of the erotic in medieval literature which includes articles on the role of clothing and nudity, the tension between eroticism and transgression and religion and the erotic. This volume examines the erotic in the literature of medieval Britain, primarily in Middle English, but also in Latin, Welsh and Old French. Seeking to discover the nature of the erotic and how it differs from modern erotics, thecontributors address topics such as the Wife of Bath's opinions on marital eroticism, the role of clothing and nudity, the tension between eroticism and transgression, the interplay between religion and the erotic, and the hedonistic horrors of the cannibalistic Giant of Mont St Michel. Contributors: ALEX DAVIS, SIMON MEECHAM-JONES, JANE BLISS, SUE NIEBRZYDOWSKI, KRISTINA HILDEBRAND, ANTHONY BALE, CORY JAMES RUSHTON, CORINNE SAUNDERS, AMANDA HOPKINS, ROBERT ROUSE, MARGARET ROBSON, THOMAS H. CROFTS III, MICHAEL CICHON. AMANDA HOPKINS teaches in the department of English and Comparative Literary Studies and the department of French at the University of Warwick; CORY RUSHTON is in the Department of English at St. Francis Xavier University, Nova Scotia, Canada.