The twenty-six essays in this volume examine the process of creating the Middle Ages. In doing so, they honour Leslie Workman, who has led the revival of the study of medievalism in the past two generations, and leads this sub-discipline towards the comprehensiveness that Lord Acton as early as 1859 had promised: 'Two great principles divide the world, and contend for the mastery: antiquity and the Middle Ages. These are the two civilizations that have preceded us, the two elements of which ours is composed. All political as well as religious questions reduce themselves practically to this. This is the great dualism that runs through our society.' While using different approaches and discussing topics in a variety of specialised fields, the contributions clearly centre on negotiating the reception of medieval culture in the Early Modern, Modern and Contemporary periods, thus presenting a broad and representative picture of current research in medievalism.
Author(s): Richard Utz, Tom Shippey (eds.)
Series: Making the Middle Ages, 1
Publisher: Brepols
Year: 1998
Language: English
Pages: 472
City: Turnhout
Editorial Note xi
Tabula Gratulatoria xiii
INTRODUCTION
Medievalism in the Modern World: Introductory Perspectives / Richard Utz and Tom Shippey 1
'WATERSHEDS' RE-EXAMINED
The Anxiety of Authority and Medievalizing the New World / Theresa Ann Sears 15
Humanist Allusions and Medieval Themes: The 'Receyving' of Queen Anne, London, 1533 / Richard Osberg 27
Christopher Middleton and Elizabethan Medievalism / John Simons 43
Medievalism and the Salem Witch Trials / Bernard Rosenthal 61
APPROPRIATING THE PAST
Absent Presence: The Romantic-Era Magna Charta and the English Constitution / Clare Simmons 69
The Swanscombe Legend and the Historiography of Kentish Gavelkind / R. J. Smith 85
Representing the Middle Ages: Court Festivals in Nineteenth-Century Prussia / David Barclay 105
'Deutschland, Deutschland, Über Alles'? Walther von der Vogelweide, Hoffmann von Fallersleben and the 'Song of the Germans': Medievalism, Nationalism and/or Racism / Ulrich Müller 117
St. George and the Pendragon / Roger Simpson 131
BYGONE MEDIEVALISMS
'The Death-Song of Ragnar Lodbrog': A Study in Sensibilities / Tom Shippey 155
Carlyle and the Medievalism of the North / Alice Chandler 173
Medieval Images: Joseph Viktor von Scheffèl's 'Ekkehard' and St. Gall / Werner Wunderlich 193
The (Fai)Lure of the Aesthetic Ideal and the (Re)Formation of Art: The Medieval Paradigm that Frames 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' / Felicia Bonaparte 227
Dante on the Edwardian Stage: Stephen Phillips's 'Paolo and Francesca' / William Calin 255
Medievalism, Classicism, and the Fiction of E. M. Forster / Kathleen Verduin 263
CONTEMPORARY MEDIEVALISMS
Reconstructing the Middle Ages: The Monk's Sermon in 'The Seventh Seal' / William D. Paden 287
Theorizing Medievalism: The Case of 'Gone with the Wind' / Rosemary Welsh 307
Gnosticism, the Middle Ages, and the Search for Responsibility: Immortals in Popular Fiction / Gwendolyn Morgan 317
'Anthem': Auden's 'Cædmon's Hymn' / Paul E. Szarmach 329
'In Rama Sonat Gemitus...': The Becket Story in a Danish Medievalist Music Drama, 'A Vigil for Thomas Becket' / Nils Holger Petersen 341
MEDIEVALISM AND THE ACADEMY
'Cleansing' the Discipline: Ernst Robert Curtius and his Medievalist Turn / Richard Utz 359
The Ideological Use of Chaucer: The Examples of Kittredge and Donaldson / Britton J. Harwood 379
Medievalism and the Problem of Radical Evil in Snodgrass's 'The Fuehrer Bunker' / David Metzger 393
Romancing the Text, Medievalizing the Book / David Greetham 409
DOCUMENTS
Speaking of Medievalism: An Interview with Leslie J. Workman / Richard Utz 433
Leslie Workman: A Speech of Thanks / William Calin 451
