Body and the Soul in Medieval Literature [Hardcover]

The theme of the body-and-soul relationship in medieval texts and in modern reworkings of medieval matter is explored in the articles here, specifically the representation of the body in romance; the relevance of bawdy tales to the cultural experience of authors and readers in the middle ages; the function of despair, or melancholy, in medieval and Renaissance literature; and the political significance of late medieval representations of `bodies' in the chroniclers' accounts of the Rising and in Gower's poems. Two articles are devoted to modern retellings of medieval themes: John Foxe's Acts and Monuments, seen in relation to the traditional acta martyrum, and the medieval revival in Tory Britain exemplified in Douglas Oliver's The Infant and the Pearl. Contributors: PAMELA JOSEPH BENSON, NIGEL S. THOMPSON, JON WHITMAN, JEROME MANDEL, BARBARA NOLAN, YASUNARI TAKADA, YVETTE MARCHAND, ROBERT F. YEAGER, JOERG O. FICHTE, JOHN KERRIGANThe theme of the `body and soul' relationship in medieval texts and modern reworkings.Gualdrada's Two Bodies: Female and Civic Virtue in Medieval Florence - Pamela Joseph BensonMan's Flesh and Woman's Spirit in the Decameron and the Canterbury Tales - Nigel S ThompsonThe Body and the Struggle for the Soul of Romance: La Queste del Saint Graal - Jon Whitman`Polymorphous Sexualities' in Chretian de Troyes and Sir Thomas Malory - Jerome MandelPromiscuous Fictions: Medieval Bawdy Tales and Their Textual Liaisons - Barbara Nolan`Commune Profit' and Libidinal Dissemination in Chaucer - Yasunari TakadaTowards a Psychosomatic View of Human Nature: Chaucer, Spencer, Burton - Yvette Marie MarchandThe Body Politic and the Politics of Bodies in the Poetry of John Gower - Robert F. YeagerFoxe's Acts and Monuments: The Spirit's Triumph over the Flesh - Joerg O FichteMrs Thatcher's Pearl - John Kerrigan