Laughter In The Middle Ages And Early Modern Times

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Laughter in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times

Author : Albrecht Classen
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter
Page : 864 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 2010-09-22
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9783110245486

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Laughter in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times by Albrecht Classen Pdf

Despite popular opinions of the ‘dark Middle Ages’ and a ‘gloomy early modern age,’ many people laughed, smiled, giggled, chuckled, entertained and ridiculed each other. This volume demonstrates how important laughter had been at times and how diverse the situations proved to be in which people laughed, and this from late antiquity to the eighteenth century. The contributions examine a wide gamut of significant cases of laughter in literary texts, historical documents, and art works where laughter determined the relationship among people. In fact, laughter emerges as a kaleidoscopic phenomenon reflecting divine joy, bitter hatred and contempt, satirical perspectives and parodic intentions. In some examples protagonists laughed out of sheer happiness and delight, in others because they felt anxiety and insecurity. It is much more difficult to detect premodern sculptures of laughing figures, but they also existed. Laughter reflected a variety of concerns, interests, and intentions, and the collective approach in this volume to laughter in the past opens many new windows to the history of mentality, social and religious conditions, gender relationships, and power structures.

Comic Medievalism

Author : Louise D'Arcens
Publisher : Boydell & Brewer Ltd
Page : 222 pages
File Size : 50,7 Mb
Release : 2014
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781843843801

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Comic Medievalism by Louise D'Arcens Pdf

The role of laughter and humour in the postmedieval citation, interpretation or recreation of the middle ages has hitherto received little attention, a gap in scholarship which this book aims to fill. Examining a wide range of comic texts and practices across several centuries, from Don Quixote and early Chaucerian modernisation through to Victorian theatre, the Monty Python films, television and the experience of visiting sites of "heritage tourism" such as the Jorvik Viking Museum at York, it identifies what has been perceived as uniquely funny about the Middle Ages in different times and places, and how this has influenced ideas not just about the medieval but also about modernity. Tracing the development and permutations of its various registers, including satire, parody, irony, camp, wit, jokes, and farce, the author offers fresh and amusing insight into comic medievalism as a vehicle for critical commentary on the present as well as the past, and shows that for as long as there has been medievalism, people have laughed at and with the middle ages. Louise D'Arcens is Associate Professor in English Literatures at the University of Wollongong.

Laughter and Narrative in the Later Middle Ages

Author : Sebastian Coxon
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 226 pages
File Size : 55,9 Mb
Release : 2017-07-05
Category : Foreign Language Study
ISBN : 9781351560832

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Laughter and Narrative in the Later Middle Ages by Sebastian Coxon Pdf

In contrast to the vernacular literary traditions of France, Italy and England, comic tales in verse flourished in late medieval Germany, providing bawdy entertainment for larger audiences of public recitals as well as for smaller numbers of individual readers. In a sustained close analysis Sebastian Coxon explores both the narrative design and fundamental thematic preoccupations of these short texts. A distinctively performative tradition of pre-modern narrative literature emerges which invited its recipients to think, learn and above all to laugh in a number of different ways.

On Farting

Author : V. Allen
Publisher : Springer
Page : 239 pages
File Size : 42,6 Mb
Release : 2010-05-24
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9780230109063

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On Farting by V. Allen Pdf

This book presents waste as an aesthetic category that introduces an arsy-versy world where detritus is precious. This aesthetic is applied in the second part to etymology, poking through the 'paternal dungheaps' of words, and tracing their origins not to Eden but to Babel, puns, and word play.

Pleasure and Leisure in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age

Author : Albrecht Classen
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Page : 764 pages
File Size : 48,6 Mb
Release : 2019-08-05
Category : History
ISBN : 9783110623079

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Pleasure and Leisure in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age by Albrecht Classen Pdf

Jan Huizinga and Roger Caillois have already taught us to realize how important games and play have been for pre-modern civilization. Recent research has begun to acknowledge the fundamental importance of these aspects in cultural, religious, philosophical, and literary terms. This volume expands on the traditional approach still very much focused on the materiality of game (toys, cards, dice, falcons, dolls, etc.) and acknowledges that game constituted also a form of coming to terms with human existence in an unstable and volatile world determined by universal randomness and fortune. Whether considering blessings or horse fighting, falconry or card games, playing with dice or dolls, we can gain a much deeper understanding of medieval and early modern society when we consider how people pursued pleasure and how they structured their leisure time. The contributions examine a wide gamut of approaches to pleasure, considering health issues, eroticism, tournaments, playing music, reading and listening, drinking alcohol, gambling and throwing dice. This large issue was also relevant, of course, in non-Christian societies, and constitutes a critical concern both for the past and the present because we are all homines ludentes.

East Meets West in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times

Author : Albrecht Classen
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter
Page : 827 pages
File Size : 45,9 Mb
Release : 2013-09-03
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9783110321517

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East Meets West in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times by Albrecht Classen Pdf

This new volume explores the surprisingly intense and complex relationships between East and West during the Middle Ages and the early modern world, combining a large number of critical studies representing such diverse fields as literary (German, French, Italian, English, Spanish, and Arabic) and other subdisciplines of history, religion, anthropology, and linguistics. The differences between Islam and Christianity erected strong barriers separating two global cultures, but, as this volume indicates, despite many attempts to 'Other' the opposing side, the premodern world experienced an astonishing degree of contacts, meetings, exchanges, and influences. Scientists, travelers, authors, medical researchers, chroniclers, diplomats, and merchants criss-crossed the East and the West, or studied the sources produced by the other culture for many different reasons. As much as the theoretical concept of 'Orientalism' has been useful in sensitizing us to the fundamental tensions and conflicts separating both worlds at least since the eighteenth century, the premodern world did not quite yet operate in such an ideological framework. Even though the Crusades had violently pitted Christians against Muslims, there were countless contacts and a palpitable curiosity on both sides both before, during, and after those religious warfares.

Death in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times

Author : Albrecht Classen
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Page : 551 pages
File Size : 54,9 Mb
Release : 2016-04-11
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9783110436976

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Death in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times by Albrecht Classen Pdf

Death is not only the final moment of life, it also casts a huge shadow on human society at large. People throughout time have had to cope with death as an existential experience, and this also, of course, in the premodern world. The contributors to the present volume examine the material and spiritual conditions of the culture of death, studying specific buildings and spaces, literary works and art objects, theatrical performances, and medical tracts from the early Middle Ages to the late eighteenth century. Death has always evoked fear, terror, and awe, it has puzzled and troubled people, forcing theologians and philosophers to respond and provide answers for questions that seem to evade real explanations. The more we learn about the culture of death, the more we can comprehend the culture of life. As this volume demonstrates, the approaches to death varied widely, also in the Middle Ages and the early modern age. This volume hence adds a significant number of new facets to the critical examination of this ever-present phenomenon of death, exploring poetic responses to the Black Death, types of execution of a female murderess, death as the springboard for major political changes, and death reflected in morality plays and art.

Rural Space in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age

Author : Albrecht Classen
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter
Page : 930 pages
File Size : 54,5 Mb
Release : 2012-05-29
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9783110285420

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Rural Space in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age by Albrecht Classen Pdf

Older research on the premodern world limited its focus on the Church, the court, and, more recently, on urban space. The present volume invites readers to consider the meaning of rural space, both in light of ecocritical readings and social-historical approaches. While previous scholars examined the figure of the peasant in the premodern world, the current volume combines a large number of specialized studies that investigate how the natural environment and the appearance of members of the rural population interacted with the world of the court and of the city. The experience in rural space was important already for writers and artists in the premodern era, as the large variety of scholarly approaches indicates. The present volume signals how much the surprisingly close interaction between members of the aristocratic and of the peasant class determined many literary and art-historical works. In a surprisingly large number of cases we can even discover elements of utopia hidden in rural space. We also observe how much the rural world was a significant element already in early-medieval mentality. Moreover, as many authors point out, the impact of natural forces on premodern society was tremendous, if not catastrophic.

Imagination and Fantasy in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Time

Author : Albrecht Classen
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Page : 820 pages
File Size : 44,6 Mb
Release : 2020-08-24
Category : History
ISBN : 9783110693669

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Imagination and Fantasy in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Time by Albrecht Classen Pdf

The notions of other peoples, cultures, and natural conditions have always been determined by the epistemology of imagination and fantasy, providing much freedom and creativity, and yet have also created much fear, anxiety, and horror. In this regard, the pre-modern world demonstrates striking parallels with our own insofar as the projections of alterity might be different by degrees, but they are fundamentally the same by content. Dreams, illusions, projections, concepts, hopes, utopias/dystopias, desires, and emotional attachments are as specific and impactful as the physical environment. This volume thus sheds important light on the various lenses used by people in the Middle Ages and the early modern age as to how they came to terms with their perceptions, images, and notions. Previous scholarship focused heavily on the history of mentality and history of emotions, whereas here the history of pre-modern imagination, and fantasy assumes center position. Imaginary things are taken seriously because medieval and early modern writers and artists clearly reveal their great significance in their works and their daily lives. This approach facilitates a new deep-structure analysis of pre-modern culture.

Sexuality in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times

Author : Albrecht Classen
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter
Page : 913 pages
File Size : 53,9 Mb
Release : 2008-12-10
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9783110209402

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Sexuality in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times by Albrecht Classen Pdf

Sexuality is one of the most influential factors in human life. The responses to and reflections upon the manifestations of sexuality provide fascinating insights into fundamental aspects of medieval and early-modern culture. This interdisciplinary volume with articles written by social historians, literary historians, musicologists, art historians, and historians of religion and mental-ity demonstrates how fruitful collaborative efforts can be in the exploration of essential features of human society. Practically every aspect of culture both in the Middle Ages and the early modern age was influenced and determined by sexuality, which hardly ever surfaces simply characterized by prurient interests. The treatment of sexuality in literature, chronicles, music, art, legal documents, and in scientific texts illuminates central concerns, anxieties, tensions, needs, fears, and problems in human society throughout times.

Crime and Punishment in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age

Author : Albrecht Classen,Connie Scarborough
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter
Page : 612 pages
File Size : 46,8 Mb
Release : 2012-10-30
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9783110294583

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Crime and Punishment in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age by Albrecht Classen,Connie Scarborough Pdf

All societies are constructed, based on specific rules, norms, and laws. Hence, all ethics and morality are predicated on perceived right or wrong behavior, and much of human culture proves to be the result of a larger discourse on vices and virtues, transgression and ideals, right and wrong. The topics covered in this volume, addressing fundamental concerns of the premodern world, deal with allegedly criminal, or simply wrong behavior which demanded punishment. Sometimes this affected whole groups of people, such as the innocently persecuted Jews, sometimes individuals, such as violent and evil princes. The issue at stake here embraces all of society since it can only survive if a general framework is observed that is based in some way on justice and peace. But literature and the visual arts provide many examples of open and public protests against wrongdoings, ill-conceived ideas and concepts, and stark crimes, such as theft, rape, and murder. In fact, poetic statements or paintings could carry significant potentials against those who deliberately transgressed moral and ethical norms, or who even targeted themselves.

Magic and Magicians in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Time

Author : Albrecht Classen
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Page : 767 pages
File Size : 46,6 Mb
Release : 2017-10-23
Category : History
ISBN : 9783110557725

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Magic and Magicians in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Time by Albrecht Classen Pdf

There are no clear demarcation lines between magic, astrology, necromancy, medicine, and even sciences in the pre-modern world. Under the umbrella term 'magic,' the contributors to this volume examine a wide range of texts, both literary and religious, both medical and philosophical, in which the topic is discussed from many different perspectives. The fundamental concerns address issue such as how people perceived magic, whether they accepted it and utilized it for their own purposes, and what impact magic might have had on the mental structures of that time. While some papers examine the specific appearance of magicians in literary texts, others analyze the practical application of magic in medical contexts. In addition, this volume includes studies that deal with the rise of the witch craze in the late fifteenth century and then also investigate whether the Weberian notion of disenchantment pertaining to the modern world can be maintained. Magic is, oddly but significantly, still around us and exerts its influence. Focusing on magic in the medieval world thus helps us to shed light on human culture at large.

A Cultural History of Comedy in the Middle Ages

Author : Martha Bayless
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 233 pages
File Size : 51,8 Mb
Release : 2021-12-30
Category : History
ISBN : 9781350187610

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A Cultural History of Comedy in the Middle Ages by Martha Bayless Pdf

Comedy and humor flourished in manifold forms in the Middle Ages. This volume, covering the period from 1000 to 1400 CE, examines the themes, practice, and effects of medieval comedy, from the caustic morality of principled satire to the exuberant improprieties of many wildly popular tales of sex and trickery. The analysis includes the most influential authors of the age, such as Chaucer, Boccaccio, Juan Ruiz, and Hrothswitha of Gandersheim, as well as lesser-known works and genres, such as songs of insult, nonsense-texts, satirical church paintings, topical jokes, and obscene pilgrim badges. The analysis touches on most of the literatures of medieval Europe, including a discussion of the formal attitudes toward humor in Christian, Jewish, and Islamic traditions. The volume demonstrates the many ways in which medieval humor could be playful, casual, sophisticated, important, subversive, and even dangerous. Each chapter takes a different theme as its focus: form, theory, praxis, identities, the body, politics and power, laughter, and ethics.

Globalism in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Age

Author : Albrecht Classen
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Page : 652 pages
File Size : 47,5 Mb
Release : 2023-09-04
Category : History
ISBN : 9783111190228

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Globalism in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Age by Albrecht Classen Pdf

Although it is fashionable among modernists to claim that globalism emerged only since ca. 1800, the opposite can well be documented through careful comparative and transdisciplinary studies, as this volume demonstrates, offering a wide range of innovative perspectives on often neglected literary, philosophical, historical, or medical documents. Texts, images, ideas, knowledge, and objects migrated throughout the world already in the pre-modern world, even if the quantitative level compared to the modern world might have been different. In fact, by means of translations and trade, for instance, global connections were established and maintained over the centuries. Archetypal motifs developed in many literatures indicate how much pre-modern people actually shared. But we also discover hard-core facts of global economic exchange, import of exotic medicine, and, on another level, intensive intellectual debates on religious issues. Literary evidence serves best to expose the extent to which contacts with people in foreign countries were imaginable, often desirable, and at times feared, of course. The pre-modern world was much more on the move and reached out to distant lands out of curiosity, economic interests, and political and military concerns. Diplomats crisscrossed the continents, and artists, poets, and craftsmen traveled widely. We can identify, for instance, both the Vikings and the Arabs as global players long before the rise of modern globalism, so this volume promises to rewrite many of our traditional notions about pre-modern worldviews, economic conditions, and the literary sharing on a global level, as perhaps best expressed by the genre of the fable.

Blurred Boundaries and Deceptive Dichotomies in Pre-Modern Texts and Images

Author : Dafna Nissim,Vered Tohar
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Page : 266 pages
File Size : 54,6 Mb
Release : 2023-12-18
Category : History
ISBN : 9783111243894

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Blurred Boundaries and Deceptive Dichotomies in Pre-Modern Texts and Images by Dafna Nissim,Vered Tohar Pdf

This collection of essays focuses on the way blurred boundaries are represented in pre-modern texts and visual art and how they were received and perceived by their audiences: readers, listeners, and viewers. According to the current understanding that opposing cognitive categories that are so common in modern thinking do not apply to pre-modern mentalities, we argue that individuals in medieval and pre-modern societies did not necessarily consider sacred and secular, male and female, real and fictional, and opposing emotions as absolute dichotomies. The contributors to the present collection examine a wide range of cultural artifacts – literary texts, wall paintings, sculptures, jewelry, manuscript illustrations, and various objects as to what they reflect regarding the dominant perceptual system – the network of beliefs, worldviews, presumptions, values, and norms of viewing/reading/hearing different from modern epistemology strongly predicated on the binary nature of things and people. The essays suggest that analyzing pre-modern cultural works of art or literature in light of reception theory can lead to a better understanding of how those cultural products influenced individuals and impacted their thoughts and actions.