Medievalism examined in a variety of genres, from fairy tales to today's computer games. As medievalism is refracted through new media, it is often radically transformed. Yet it inevitably retains at least some common denominators with more traditional responses to the middle ages.
This latest volume of 'Studies in Medievalism' explores this phenomenon with a special section on computer games, examining digital echoes of the medieval past in subjects ranging from the sovereign ethics of empire in 'Star Wars' to gender identity in on-line role playing. Medievalism in more conventional venues is also addressed, ranging from early French fairy tales to nineteenth-century neo-Byzantine murals. Great innovation and extraordinary continuity are thus juxtaposed not only within each article but also across the volume as a whole, in yet further testimony to the exceptional flexibility and enduring relevance of medievalism.
Author(s): Karl Fugelso, Carol L. Robinson (eds.)
Publisher: D. S. Brewer
Year: 2008
Language: English
Pages: 224
City: Cambridge
List of Illustrations x
Editorial Note / Karl Fugelso xiii
'Contes du Style des Troubadours': The Memory of the Medieval in Seventeenth-Century French Fairy Tales / Alicia C. Montoya 1
A Ritual Failure: The Eglinton Tournament, the Victorian Medieval Revival, and Victorian Ritual Culture / Albert D. Pionke 25
An Eastern Medieval Revival: Byzantine Art and Nineteenth-Century French Painting / Gretchen Kreahling McKay 46
“I Am Weary of That Foolish Tale”: Yeats’s Revision of Tennyson’s 'Idylls' and Ideals in “Time and the Witch Vivien” / Chene Heady 67
The Doughboy Comes to Chartres: 'Stars and Stripes' and the Middle Ages / Bruce C. Brasington 83
Constructing Difference: The Guidonian Hand and the Musical Space of Historical Others / Stefano Mengozzi 98
Medievalism in Video Games
An Introduction to Medievalist Video Games / Carol L. Robinson 123
Medieval and Pseudo-Medieval Elements in Computer Role-Playing Games: Use and Interactivity / Oliver M. Traxel 125
Romancing the Game: Magic, Writing, and the Feminine in 'Neverwinter Nights' / Amy S. Kaufman 143
Revising the Future: The Medieval Self and the Sovereign Ethics of Empire in 'Star Wars': 'Knights of the Old Republic' / Brent Moberly and Kevin Moberly 159
Promises of Monsters: The Rethinking of Gender in MMORPGs / Lauryn S. Mayer 184
Notes on Contributors 205
