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The Basics
Medieval Literature: The Basics: The Basics
Medieval The Basics is an engaging introduction to this fascinating body of literature. The volume breaks down the variety of genres used in the corpus of medieval literature and makes these texts accessible to readers. It engages with the familiarities present in the narratives and connects these ideas with a contemporary, twenty-first century audience. The volume also addresses contemporary medievalism to show the presence of medieval literature in contemporary culture, such as film, television, games, and novels. From Dante and Chaucer to Christine de Pisan, this book deals with questions such Medieval The Basics is an ideal introduction for students coming to the subject for the first time, while also acting as a springboard from which deeper interaction with medieval literature can be developed.
- GenresHistoryMedieval History
170 pages, Hardcover
Published April 3, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 25, 2021
The authors provide a decent short overview of some of the major themes, authors, and genres of medieval literature. Their ability to include more due less, I assume, to their own wishes and expertise, than to the length of the volume versus the incredible wealth of literature available for the time period covered. The authors discuss literature related to War, violence, love, desire, religious experience and belief, medieval travel and depictions of foreign lands, and medieval approaches to history, poetry, and prose. They conclude with a fun and brief analysis of 6 important and popular medieval authors. I enjoyed reading this introduction.
The authors clearly favour (or at least use language which leads us to believe this to be the case) a more “post-modern/post-structuralist approach to the interpretation of literature (putting emphasis on power structures, and how language and misogyny frequently went together—and were also questioned by some of their preferred medieval authors). Though they try to give the appearance that they are seeking to be unprejudiced, we clearly see that they favour and emphasize authors which they interpret as feminists (or Proto-feminists), and emphasize, whenever possible, the secular and political side of many writings (clearly doing all they can to down play, apologize for, and sometimes grudgingly admit the presence of, religious elements in the works they are discussing). One gets the impression that they see the religious elements of these medieval works as an unwelcome invasion into otherwise interesting and enjoyable literature (we see this not only in their discussions of the literature itself, but even in their recommended readings, as they direct interested readers away from secondary sources that might contain a more traditionally Christian understanding of, wait for it, even the Christian texts). If this is not the impression they wish to give, they have done a good job of hiding their true thoughts on religion.
One wonders if this is the reason for the strange absence of any reference to the academic work of important 20th century literary giants such as J. R. R. Tolkien (only briefly mentioned in relation to his popularity as an author of medievalist fiction, his translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and his article on Myths and Monsters) and C. S. Lewis (not mentioned, at all). The almost overwhelming absence of J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis is amplified by the fact that both of them wrote critical commentaries (or produced important translations) of many of the works of literature discussed in this book. Lewis, in fact, famously wrote an enormous monograph on Courtly Love (“the Allegory of Love”), a subject which occupies an entire chapter in this book, and discusses (in other writings, such as “Medieval and Renaissance Literature”, “The Discarded Image”, “Arthurian Torso”, etc.) almost all the other subjects found in this book.
Also strange is that though there is mention of important medieval Muslim and Jewish theologians/philosophers (i.e. - Avicenna, Averroes, and Maimonides), the names of some of the greatest Christian theologians of the medieval ages (i.e.- Anselm, Aquinas, Bonaventure, Scotus, etc.) are nowhere to be found (even in that chapter where one would expect them). Nor is there any mention of that important scholastic literary genre known as the disputed questions. This last critique would be gratuitous if it were not for the presence of an entire chapter dedicated to the religious literature of the Middle Ages, in which the authors discuss Muslim and Jewish theologians who wrote important theological treatises and spiritual literature during the Middle Ages, but not some of the greatest Christian authors writing the same types of literature during the same time period. In the chapter on Religious literature, we find a grudging acknowledgment of the importance of Augustine’s “Confessions”, which tries to downplay its deep Christian themes; a discussion of monasticism and Christian Sermons which treats Bernard of Clairvaux in the same way; a discussion of visions and mystical literature which doesn’t even mention Bonaventure, focusing almost exclusively on the women mystics of the late medieval period (important, of course, but strange when viewed in the absence of other important mystics of the same time or earlier), and treats Boethius’s “Consolation” as less than Christian or as “not specifically Christian”. One would have expected at least a comment such as, “due to the fact that this author has been amply discussed elsewhere, we will concentrate more on lesser known authors in this genre”. Then again, they discuss all of the most important authors in the other genres (regardless of the wealth of secondary literature available), so, one wonders if there is, after all, an anti-Christian bias showing through.
Despite all of this, I still found the book helpful as an introduction, and worth the time to read it.
The authors clearly favour (or at least use language which leads us to believe this to be the case) a more “post-modern/post-structuralist approach to the interpretation of literature (putting emphasis on power structures, and how language and misogyny frequently went together—and were also questioned by some of their preferred medieval authors). Though they try to give the appearance that they are seeking to be unprejudiced, we clearly see that they favour and emphasize authors which they interpret as feminists (or Proto-feminists), and emphasize, whenever possible, the secular and political side of many writings (clearly doing all they can to down play, apologize for, and sometimes grudgingly admit the presence of, religious elements in the works they are discussing). One gets the impression that they see the religious elements of these medieval works as an unwelcome invasion into otherwise interesting and enjoyable literature (we see this not only in their discussions of the literature itself, but even in their recommended readings, as they direct interested readers away from secondary sources that might contain a more traditionally Christian understanding of, wait for it, even the Christian texts). If this is not the impression they wish to give, they have done a good job of hiding their true thoughts on religion.
One wonders if this is the reason for the strange absence of any reference to the academic work of important 20th century literary giants such as J. R. R. Tolkien (only briefly mentioned in relation to his popularity as an author of medievalist fiction, his translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and his article on Myths and Monsters) and C. S. Lewis (not mentioned, at all). The almost overwhelming absence of J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis is amplified by the fact that both of them wrote critical commentaries (or produced important translations) of many of the works of literature discussed in this book. Lewis, in fact, famously wrote an enormous monograph on Courtly Love (“the Allegory of Love”), a subject which occupies an entire chapter in this book, and discusses (in other writings, such as “Medieval and Renaissance Literature”, “The Discarded Image”, “Arthurian Torso”, etc.) almost all the other subjects found in this book.
Also strange is that though there is mention of important medieval Muslim and Jewish theologians/philosophers (i.e. - Avicenna, Averroes, and Maimonides), the names of some of the greatest Christian theologians of the medieval ages (i.e.- Anselm, Aquinas, Bonaventure, Scotus, etc.) are nowhere to be found (even in that chapter where one would expect them). Nor is there any mention of that important scholastic literary genre known as the disputed questions. This last critique would be gratuitous if it were not for the presence of an entire chapter dedicated to the religious literature of the Middle Ages, in which the authors discuss Muslim and Jewish theologians who wrote important theological treatises and spiritual literature during the Middle Ages, but not some of the greatest Christian authors writing the same types of literature during the same time period. In the chapter on Religious literature, we find a grudging acknowledgment of the importance of Augustine’s “Confessions”, which tries to downplay its deep Christian themes; a discussion of monasticism and Christian Sermons which treats Bernard of Clairvaux in the same way; a discussion of visions and mystical literature which doesn’t even mention Bonaventure, focusing almost exclusively on the women mystics of the late medieval period (important, of course, but strange when viewed in the absence of other important mystics of the same time or earlier), and treats Boethius’s “Consolation” as less than Christian or as “not specifically Christian”. One would have expected at least a comment such as, “due to the fact that this author has been amply discussed elsewhere, we will concentrate more on lesser known authors in this genre”. Then again, they discuss all of the most important authors in the other genres (regardless of the wealth of secondary literature available), so, one wonders if there is, after all, an anti-Christian bias showing through.
Despite all of this, I still found the book helpful as an introduction, and worth the time to read it.
May 26, 2022
An excellent introduction to the literature of the Middle Ages.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews