Feeling

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah McNamer
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
English Literature ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Middle English Literature ◽  
Sir Gawain ◽  
History Of Emotion ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Methodologies ◽  
A Site ◽  
Opening Up

The past few decades have witnessed a surge of interest in emotion as a subject of study across the disciplines. This has generated important interdisciplinary conversations, opening up new methodologies and new fields, including a field with special relevance to medievalists -- the history of emotion. How can specialists in Middle English literature contribute in more visible and fruitful ways to the history of emotion? This article gestures towards some ways of bridging the disciplinary divide between literature and the history of emotion. It advocates an approach that does not dismiss, but embraces, the "literariness" of literature as a site for the making of emotion in history. It invites Middle English scholars to consider literary texts as scripts for the production of feeling, and it explains how the concepts of performance and performativity can generate new ways of thinking about emotion historically. Finally, it illustrates a method for reading Middle English texts as scripts for the making of emotion in history by analyzing two texts, The Wooing of Our Lord and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, in their historical contexts.

Imaginative Theory

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolette Zeeman
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Literary Theory ◽  
English Literature ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Middle English Literature ◽  
Theoretical Figure

The literary theory of the medieval schools, found in academic prologues or commentaries, is often articulated in an analytical and explicit language. However, in both Latin and vernacular literary texts literary self-theorization may also be expressed in figured and metaphorical form. An example would be Guillaume de Machaut’s “Prologue,” but other widespread and recognizable literary theoretical figures include the dream, the mirror, the reading of a book, or the conversation overheard. It is important for scholarship in Middle English literature to focus more on these “imaginative” articulations of literary theory. This article examines one particular literary-theoretical figure, the chanson d’aventure (“the song of adventure”), which, depending on how it is put together, can perform an array of literary self-commentaries.

The History of Emotions and Middle English Literature

2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 444-456 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Downes ◽  
Rebecca F. McNamara
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
English Literature ◽  
Middle English Literature ◽  
History Of Emotions ◽  
History Of

Liturgy

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Holsinger
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
English Literature ◽  
Medieval England ◽  
Literary Production ◽  
Middle English Literature ◽  
English Writing ◽  
History Of ◽  
Early English ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Common Prayer

In medieval England, liturgy was a looming presence in so many aspects of English literary production. Yet many fundamental questions concerning the relationship between liturgy and vernacular literary production have remained unaddressed. This article explores the liturgical character of Middle English literature and how liturgy links the pre- and post-Conquest eras. In pursuing a liturgical history of early English writing, it outlines a detheologizing vision of liturgy and its objects. It also discusses the phenomenology of the modern theologized category of the “service book,” how previous theologizing habits of liturgical understanding have affected the Middle English religious lyric, and the writing and dissemination of the Book of Common Prayer.

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