East Lynne was first written as a serial, and appeared in the New Monthly Magazine from January 1860 through September 1861. Its combination of suspense, doomed love, scandal and tragic remorse made it immensely successful, and it has remained the most famous and widely read of Mrs. Henry Wood's novels. Although no more melodramatic than others of her books, at the center of East Lynne is a development that strains credulity more severely than her other works; but the situation that transpires when Isabel Vane returns to East Lynne was one that readers found unforgettable...

This important new contribution to the history of the body analyzes the role of filth as the material counterpart of sin in medieval thought. Using a wide range of texts, including theology, historical documents, and literature from Augustine to Chaucer, the book shows how filth was regarded as fundamental to an understanding of human history. This theological significance explains the prominence of filth and dung in all genres of medieval writing: there is more dung in theology than there is in Chaucer. The author also demonstrates the ways in which the religious understanding of filth and sin influenced the secular world, from town planning to the execution of traitors. As part of this investigation the book looks at the symbolic order of the body and the ways in which the different aspects of the body were assigned moral meanings. The book also lays out the realities of medieval sanitation, providing the first comprehensive view of real-life attempts to cope with filth. This book will be essential reading for those interested in medieval religious thought, literature, amd social history. Filled with a wealth of entertaining examples, it will also appeal to those who simply want to glimpse the medieval world as it really was.

This important new contribution to the history of the body analyzes the role of filth as the material counterpart of sin in medieval thought. Using a wide range of texts, including theology, historical documents, and literature from Augustine to Chaucer, the book shows how filth was regarded as fundamental to an understanding of human history. This theological significance explains the prominence of filth and dung in all genres of medieval writing: there is more dung in theology than there is in Chaucer. The author also demonstrates the ways in which the religious understanding of filth and sin influenced the secular world, from town planning to the execution of traitors. As part of this investigation the book looks at the symbolic order of the body and the ways in which the different aspects of the body were assigned moral meanings. The book also lays out the realities of medieval sanitation, providing the first comprehensive view of real-life attempts to cope with filth. This book will be essential reading for those interested in medieval religious thought, literature, amd social history. Filled with a wealth of entertaining examples, it will also appeal to those who simply want to glimpse the medieval world as it really was.

Comedy and humor flourished in manifold forms in the Middle Ages. This volume, covering the period from 1000 to 1400 CE, examines the themes, practice, and effects of medieval comedy, from the caustic morality of principled satire to the exuberant improprieties of many wildly popular tales of sex and trickery. The analysis includes the most influential authors of the age, such as Chaucer, Boccaccio, Juan Ruiz, and Hrothswitha of Gandersheim, as well as lesser-known works and genres, such as songs of insult, nonsense-texts, satirical church paintings, topical jokes, and obscene pilgrim badges. The analysis touches on most of the literatures of medieval Europe, including a discussion of the formal attitudes toward humor in Christian, Jewish, and Islamic traditions. The volume demonstrates the many ways in which medieval humor could be playful, casual, sophisticated, important, subversive, and even dangerous. Each chapter takes a different theme as its focus: form, theory, praxis, identities, the body, politics and power, laughter, and ethics.

Parody in the Middle Ages: The Latin Tradition surveys and analyzes Latin parodies of texts and documents--Biblical parody, drinker's masses, bawdy litanies, lives of saints such as Nemo (Nobody) and Invicem (One-Another), and nonsense texts--in Western Europe from the early Middle Ages to the Renaissance. This book also sketches in the background to the canonical works of medieval literature: Chaucer's fabliaux, French comic tales such as the Roman de Renart, and medieval satire in general. Bayless' study shows with great clarity that parody was a significant and vibrant literary form in the Middle Ages. In addition, her research sheds new light on clerical culture. The clerics who composed these parodies were far from meddling guardians of somber piety; rather, they appeared to see no contradiction between merriment and devotion. The wide dissemination and long life of these drolleries--some circulated for a thousand years--indicate a taste for clerical amusement that challenges conventional views of medieval solemnity. Parody in the Middle Ages surveys in detail five of the most common traditions of parody. It provides a complete list of all known medieval Latin parodies, and also provides twenty complete texts in an appendix in the original Latin, with English translations. These texts have been collated from over a hundred manuscripts, many previously unknown. The study brings to light both a form and many texts that have remained obscure and inaccessible until now. Parody in the Middle Ages appeals to the modern audience not only for its cultural value but also for the same reason the parodies appealed to the medieval audience: they are simply very funny. This welcome new volume will be of particular interest to students of medieval satire and literary culture, to medieval Latinists, and to those who want to explore the breadth of medieval culture. Martha Bayless is Assistant Professor of English, University of Oregon.