Anna Baldwin, An Introduction to Medieval English Literature 1300–1485. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Paper. Pp. xi, 282. $28.99. ISBN: 978-0-230-25037-6.Michael Calabrese, An Introduction to Piers Plowman. (New Perspectives on Medieval Literature: Authors and Traditions 6.) Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2016. Pp. xxx, 355. $79.95. ISBN: 978-0-13062-70-9.

Speculum ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 93 (1) ◽  
pp. 171-174
Author(s):  
Ellen K. Rentz
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
English Literature ◽  
Medieval Literature ◽  
Piers Plowman ◽  
Medieval English Literature

The space of time and the medievalist imaginary

2018 ◽  
pp. 22-49
Author(s):  
Thomas A. Prendergast ◽  
Stephanie Trigg
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
English Literature ◽  
Medieval Literature ◽  
Time Travel ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
Social Difference ◽  
The Past ◽  
Medieval English Literature ◽  
Spatio Temporal ◽  
The Middle Ages

Conventional wisdom sees medievalism occurring “after” the Middle Ages; and indeed much medievalist practice seems to support this view, as the Middle Ages are often conceptualised in spatio-temporal terms, through the fictions of time-travel and the specific trope of “portal medievalism”. But the two formations are more accurately seen as mutually constitutive. Medieval literature offers many examples of layered or multiple temporalities. These are often structured around cultural and social difference, which is figured in powerfully affective, not just epistemological terms. Several examples from medieval English literature demonstrate how medieval culture prefigures many of medievalism’s concerns with the alterity of the past.

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