Download or read book A History of European Literature written by Walter Cohen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-01-19 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Walter Cohen argues that the history of European literature and each of its standard periods can be illuminated by comparative consideration of the different literary languages within Europe and by the ties of European literature to world literature. World literature is marked by recurrent, systematic features, outcomes of the way that language and literature are at once the products of major change and its agents. Cohen tracks these features from ancient times to the present, distinguishing five main overlapping stages. Within that framework, he shows that European literatures ongoing internal and external relationships are most visible at the level of form rather than of thematic statement or mimetic representation. European literature emerges from world literature before the birth of Europe — during antiquity, whose Classical languages are the heirs to the complex heritage of Afro-Eurasia. This legacy is later transmitted by Latin to the various vernaculars. The uniqueness of the process lies in the gradual displacement of the learned language by the vernacular, long dominated by Romance literatures. That development subsequently informs the second crucial differentiating dimension of European literature: the multicontinental expansion of its languages and characteristic genres, especially the novel, beginning in the Renaissance. This expansion ultimately results in the reintegration of European literature into world literature and thus in the creation of todays global literary system. The distinctiveness of European literature is to be found in these interrelated trajectories.
Download or read book A History of European Literature in the Middle Ages and Modern Times written by John Reynell Morell and published by . This book was released on 1874 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A History of European Literature in the Middle Ages and Modern Times written by John Reynell Morell and published by . This book was released on 1874 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages written by Geraldine Heng and published by . This book was released on 2018-03-08 with total page 509 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book challenges the common belief that race and racisms are phenomena that began only in the modern era.
Download or read book A New History of Medieval French Literature written by Jacqueline Cerquiglini-Toulet and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2011-12-01 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is it legitimate to conceive of and write a history of medieval French literature when the term “literature” as we know it today did not appear until the very end of the Middle Ages? In this novel introduction to French literature of the period, Jacqueline Cerquiglini-Toulet says yes, arguing that a profound literary consciousness did exist at the time. Cerquiglini-Toulet challenges the standard ways of reading and evaluating literature, considering medieval literature not as separate from that in other eras but as part of the broader tradition of world literature. Her vast and learned readings of both canonical and lesser-known works pose crucial questions about, among other things, the notion of otherness, the meaning of change and stability, and the relationship of medieval literature with theology. Part history of literature, part theoretical criticism, this book reshapes the language and content of medieval works. By weaving together topics such as the origin of epic and lyric poetry, Latin-French bilingualism, women’s writing, grammar, authorship, and more, Cerquiglini-Toulet does nothing less than redefine both philosophical and literary approaches to medieval French literature. Her book is a history of the literary act, a history of words, a history of ideas and works—monuments rather than documents—that calls into question modern concepts of literature.
Download or read book Scenes from the Drama of European Literature written by Erich Auerbach and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 1984 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scenes from the Drama of European Literature was first published in 1984. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. In his foreword to this reprint of Erich Auerbach's major essays, Paolo Valesio pays tribute to the author with an old saying that he feels is still the best metaphor for the genesis of a literary critic: the critic is born of the marriage of Mercury and Philology. The German-born Auerbach was a scholar who specialized in Romance philology, a tradition rooted in German historicism—the conviction that works of art must be judged as products of variable places and times, not from the eye of eternity, nor by a single unchanging aesthetic standard. The mercurial element in Auerbach's work is significant, for in a life of motion—of exile from Hitler's Germany—he came to believe that literary history was evolutionary, ever-changing—a view reflected in the title of his book, which suggests life and literature are historical drama. Auerbach is best known for his magisterial study Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, written during the war, in Istanbul, when he was far from his own culture and from the books that he normally relied on. In 1957, just before his death, he arranged for the publication in English of his six most important essays, in a volume called Scenes from the Drama of European Literature.As in Mimesis,Auerbach's fresh insights bring to the disparate subjects of the essays a coherence that reflects the unity of Western, humanistic tradition, even while they hint at the deepening pessimism of his later years. In the first essay, "Figura," Auerbach develops his concept of the figural interpretation of reality; applied here to Dante's Divine Comedy,it also served as groundwork for his treatment of realism in Mimesis. A second essay on Dante's examines the poet's depiction of St. Francis of Assisi. The next three essays deal with the paradoxical nature of Pascal's political thought; the merging of la cour and la ville—the king's entourage and the bourgeoisie—chiefly in relation to the seventeenth-century French theater; and Vico's formulation concepts by the German Romantics. In the final essay Auerbach confers upon Baudelaire's Fleurs du Mal the designation "aesthetic dignity" because, not in spite of, the hideous reality of the peoms. "A major collection of important essays on European literature, almost all classics, and almost all required reading for their various centuries—thus the book is indispensable for the medieval period,the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries; in addition, the 'Figura' and the Vico essays are very significant theoretical statements. The book is lucid and far more accessible for undergraduates than, say, current high theory. Nor has Auerbach's own work aged . . . All of his varied strengths are evidence in this collection, which is a better way into his work than Mimesis." –Fredric Jameson, University of California, Santa Cruz.
Download or read book The European Other in Medieval Arabic Literature and Culture written by N. Hermes and published by Palgrave Macmillan. This book was released on 2015-12-10 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contrary to the monolithic impression left by postcolonial theories of Orientalism, the book makes the case that Orientals did not exist solely to be gazed at. Hermes shows that there was no shortage of medieval Muslims who cast curious eyes towards the European Other and that more than a handful of them were interested in Europe.
Download or read book Essays on European Literature written by Ernst Robert Curtius and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2015-03-08 with total page 539 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although the reputation of the great German scholar Ernst Robert Curtius was firmly established for English and American readers by the translation of European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, much of his work is still unknown to them. These twenty-four essays, written over a period of nearly thirty years, range widely in time and scope and consider some of the greatest figures in European literature, among them Virgil, Goethe, Balzac, Joyce, Eliot, Ortega y Gasset, and Hesse. The essays show the qualities that made Curtius one of the great critics of our age: his lucid, penetrating mind, his comprehensive erudition, his cosmopolitan outlook, and above all his passionate concern for European culture. Like T. S. Eliot, the subject of one of his finest essays, Curtius believed in an ideal order, a cultural unity of the West. The unifying element in all these essays is a concern to insure the conservation and continuance of European humanistic culture. For him this culture consisted of the literary heritage of Greece and Rome, developed and enriched by the Christian civilization of the Middle Ages. Consequently he selected for discussion those poets and writers who have been conscious of the unity of these two European currents and who have striven to maintain it in our time. As he ranged freely through the languages and literatures of all Western cultures, Curtius himself did much to preserve this tradition, to demonstrate its relevance, and insure its continuity. Originally published in 1973. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Download or read book Evening s Empire written by Craig Koslofsky and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-06-30 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This illuminating guide to the night opens up an entirely new vista on early modern Europe. Using diaries, letters, legal records and representations of the night in early modern religion, literature and art, Craig Koslofsky explores the myriad ways in which early modern people understood, experienced and transformed the night.
Download or read book A History of European Literature written by Walter Cohen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 625 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Walter Cohen argues that the history of European literature and each of its standard periods can be illuminated by comparative consideration of the different literary languages within Europe and by the ties of European literature to world literature. World literature is marked by recurrent, systematic features, outcomes of the way that language and literature are at once the products of major change and its agents. Cohen tracks these features from ancient times to the present, distinguishing five main overlapping stages. Within that framework, he shows that European literature's ongoing internal and external relationships are most visible at the level of form rather than of thematic statement or mimetic representation. European literature emerges from world literature before the birth of Europe-during antiquity, whose Classical languages are the heirs to the complex heritage of Afro-Eurasia. This legacy is later transmitted by Latin to the various vernaculars. The uniqueness of the process lies in the gradual displacement of the learned language by the vernacular, long dominated by Romance literatures. That development subsequently informs the second crucial differentiating dimension of European literature: the multicontinental expansion of its languages and characteristic genres, especially the novel, beginning in the Renaissance. This expansion ultimately results in the reintegration of European literature into world literature and thus in the creation of today's global literary system. The distinctiveness of European literature is to be found in these interrelated trajectories.
Download or read book Sexual Violence and Rape in the Middle Ages written by Albrecht Classen and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2011 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contrary to modern assumptions, sexual violence and rape were treated as severe crimes in the Middle Ages. This book examines the testimony in medieval and early modern German literature and traces the discourse on both aspects from the twelfth through the sixteenth centuries. Most comments about rape come from male writers, and medieval literature contains numerous examples of rape scenes which are mostly viewed highly critically. Previous studies on this topic have focused on English, French, and Italian literature, whereas here the emphasis rests on German examples.
Download or read book Prostitution in Medieval and Early Modern Literature written by Albrecht Classen and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-07-18 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prostitution is known as the oldest profession in the history of humanity. While historians have already given due consideration to the profession’s social and cultural meanings across time periods, little has been written about literary representations of prostitution. Prostitution in Medieval and Early Modern Literature analyses the work of writers from an array of social positions, including courtly poets and even religious writers, dealing with the topic during the medieval and early modern periods. Its study shows that prostitutes and brothel owners were present on the literary stage far more often than we might have assumed. Utilizing an interdisciplinary approach and incorporating relevant sources from across the entire European continent dating from the early Middle Ages to the sixteenth century, it examines the phenomenon of prostitution in a variety of contexts and highlights the extent to which the institution mattered for both the higher and the lower classes.
Download or read book Brothers and Sisters in Medieval European Literature written by Carolyne Larrington and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2015 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A wideranging and groundbreaking investigation of the sibling relationship as shown in European literature, from 500 to 1500.
Download or read book Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages 500 1300 2 vols written by Florin Curta and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-07-08 with total page 1426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2020 Verbruggen prize This book provides a comprehensive synthesis of scholarship on Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages. The goal is to offer an overview of the current state of research and a basic route map for navigating an abundant historiography available in more than 10 different languages. The literature published in English on the medieval history of Eastern Europe—books, chapters, and articles—represents a little more than 11 percent of the historiography. The companion is therefore meant to provide an orientation into the existing literature that may not be available because of linguistic barriers and, in addition, an introductory bibliography in English. Winner of the 2020 Verbruggen prize, awarded annually by the De Re Militari society for the best book on medieval military history. The awarding committee commented that the book ‘has an enormous range, and yet is exceptionally scholarly with a fine grasp of detail. Its title points to a general history of eastern Europe, but it is dominated by military episodes which make it of the highest value to anybody writing about war and warmaking in this very neglected area of Europe.’ See inside the book.
Download or read book A History of Western Literature written by J. M. Cohen and published by Transaction Publishers. This book was released on 2008 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book begins in a narrow territory, strictly Western, and extends with the passage of time to include the poetry, plays, novels, and works of speculation of the great authors of the past and present from Russia to Mexico. his objective is to tell the whole story of Western writing in languages other than English from the twelfth-century Chanson de Roland to Evtushenko's poetry of the 1960s. Cohen not only presents a factual account of historical growth. The book reflects the author's own judgments and valuations, arrived at in the course of almost forty years' reading in the main European languages. A work of original critism, A History of Western Literature immediately became a standard reference when first published. In this new edition, the author has included revisions covering the most important recent writers and their work. "Especially for American or British readers who want to explore under sensible guidance the main lines of Western letters, this carefully wrought handbook is indispensable."--Library Journal. "Considering Mr. Cohen's vast scope, his achievement is commendable. The information he presents is accurate. His style is surprisingly readable...."--Modern Language Journal. J. M. Cohen (1903-1989) was a widely known critic and a translator of French and Spanish literature. He was born in London and graduated from Cambridge University. His versions of Don Quixote, Gargantua and Pantagruel, and Rousseau's Confessions are recognized as among the finest modern translations.
Download or read book History of the Literary Cultures of East Central Europe written by Marcel Cornis-Pope and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2004-05-28 with total page 670 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: National literary histories based on internally homogeneous native traditions have significantly contributed to the construction of national identities, especially in multicultural East-Central Europe, the region between the German and Russian hegemonic cultural powers stretching from the Baltic states to the Balkans. History of the Literary Cultures of East-Central Europe, which covers the last two hundred years, reconceptualizes these literary traditions by de-emphasizing the national myths and by highlighting analogies and points of contact, as well as hybrid and marginal phenomena that traditional national histories have ignored or deliberately suppressed. The four volumes of the History configure the literatures from five angles: (1) key political events, (2) literary periods and genres, (3) cities and regions, (4) literary institutions, and (5) real and imaginary figures. The first volume, which includes the first two of these dimensions, is a collaborative effort of more than fifty contributors from Eastern and Western Europe, the US, and Canada.The four volumes of the History comprise the first volume in the new subseries on Literary Cultures.
Download or read book East Meets West in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times written by Albrecht Classen and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2013-09-03 with total page 828 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
