Download or read book Torture and Brutality in Medieval Literature written by Larissa Tracy and published by Boydell & Brewer Ltd. This book was released on 2015 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new look at the way in which medieval European literature depicts torture and brutality.
Download or read book Torture and Brutality in Medieval Literature written by Automobile Association and published by D. S. Brewer. This book was released on 2012-09-20 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An ugly subject, but one that needs to be treated thoroughly and comprehensively, with a discreet wit and no excessive relish. These needs are richly satisfied in Larissa Tracy's bold and important book. DEREK PEARSALL, Professor Emeritus, Harvard University. Torture - that most notorious aspect of medieval culture and society - has evolved into a dominant mythology, suggesting that the Middle Ages was a period during which sadistic torment was inflicted on citizens with impunity and without provocation: popular museums displaying such gruesome implements as the rack, the strappado, the gridiron, the wheel, and the Iron Maiden can be found in many modern European cities. These lurid images of medieval torture have re-emerged within recent discussions on American foreign policy and the introduction of torture legislation as a weapon in the "War on Terror", and raised questions about its history and reality, particularly given its proliferation in some literary genres and its relative absence in others. This book challenges preconceived ideas about the prevalence of torture and judicial brutality in medieval society by arguing that their portrayal in literature is not mimetic. Instead, it argues that the depictions of torture and brutality represent satire, critique and dissent; they have didactic and political functions in opposing the status quo. Torture and brutality are intertextual literary motifs that negotiate cultural anxieties of national identity; by situating these practices outside their own boundaries in the realm of the barbarian "Other", medieval and early-modern authors define themselves and their nations in opposition to them. Works examined range from Chaucer to the Scandinavian sagas to Shakespeare, enabling a true comparative approach to be taken. Larissa Tracy is Associate Professor, Longwood University.
Download or read book Castration and Culture in the Middle Ages written by Larissa Tracy and published by DS Brewer. This book was released on 2013 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essays exploring medieval castration, as reflected in archaeology, law, historical record, and literary motifs. Castration and castrati have always been facets of western culture, from myth and legend to law and theology, from eunuchs guarding harems to the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century castrati singers. Metaphoric castration pervadesa number of medieval literary genres, particularly the Old French fabliaux - exchanges of power predicated upon the exchange or absence of sexual desire signified by genitalia - but the plain, literal act of castration and its implications are often overlooked. This collection explores this often taboo subject and its implications for cultural mores and custom in Western Europe, seeking to demystify and demythologize castration. Its subjects includearchaeological studies of eunuchs; historical accounts of castration in trials of combat; the mutilation of political rivals in medieval Wales; Anglo-Saxon and Frisian legal and literary examples of castration as punishment; castration as comedy in the Old French fabliaux; the prohibition against genital mutilation in hagiography; and early-modern anxieties about punitive castration enacted on the Elizabethan stage. The introduction reflects on these topics in the context of arguably the most well-known victim of castration in the middle ages, Abelard. LARISSA TRACY is Associate Professor of Medieval Literature at Longwood University. Contributors: Larissa Tracy, Kathryn Reusch, Shaun Tougher, Jack Collins, Rolf H. Bremmer Jr, Jay Paul Gates, Charlene M. Eska, Mary A. Valante, Anthony Adams, Mary E. Leech, Jed Chandler, Ellen Lorraine Friedrich, Robert L.A. Clark, Karin Sellberg, LenaWånggren
Download or read book Heads Will Roll written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2012-01-20 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Capitalizing upon the enduring fascination with decapitation in European culture, this collection examines--through a variety of critical lenses--the recurring "roles/rolls" of severed human heads in the medieval and early modern imagination.
Download or read book Heads Will Roll written by Larissa Tracy and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2012-01-20 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Capitalizing upon the enduring fascination with decapitation in European culture, this collection examines--through a variety of critical lenses--the recurring "roles/rolls" of severed human heads in the medieval and early modern imagination.
Download or read book Flaying in the Pre modern World written by Larissa Tracy and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2017 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The practice and the representation of flaying in the middle ages and after are considered in this provocative collection.
Download or read book Violence in Medieval Courtly Literature written by Albrecht Classen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-10-12 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although courtly literature is often associated with a chivalrous and idyllic life, the fifteen original essays in this collection demonstrate that the quest for love in the world of medieval courtly literature was underpinned by violence. Lovers were rejected, mistrust ruled, rape was a rampant problem, and marriage was often characterized by brutality. Albrecht Classen brings together an outstanding group of historical, cultural, and literary scholars in this volume to investigate the complicated, nuanced, and often surprising unions of love and violence in courtly medieval literature.
Download or read book Suspended Animation written by Robert Mills and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2006-02-01 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Marsellus in the film PulpFiction asserts, "I'm gonna git medieval on your ass," we know that he is about to bring down a fierce and exacting punishment. Yet is the violence of the Middle Ages that far removed from our modern society? Suspended Animation argues that not only is the stereotype of uncontrolled violence in the Middle Ages historically misleading, the gulf between modern society and the medieval era is not as immense as we might think. In fact, both medievals and moderns live within a social tension of "suspended animation" engendered by images and acts of violence. Just as in medieval times, Robert Mills argues, it is the threat of violence—not the reality—that continues to structure our lives. To illustrate this "aesthetics of suspense," Mills draws on extensive and disturbing examples from medieval iconography, contemporary philosophy, and even pornography, ranging from the vivid depictions of Hell in Tuscan frescoes to Billie Holiday's famously wrenching song "Strange Fruit". Mills reveals how these uncomfortable images and texts expose a modern self-deception, and he further explores how medieval images evoked a pleasure revealingly close to that found in modern depictions of sexuality. Suspended Animation also makes a fresh contribution to theoretical debates on pre-modern gender and sexuality. Mills's comprehensive analysis demonstrates that—as wartime prisoner abuse incidents at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay have recently indicated—our notions of ourselves as not-medieval (that is, civilized) not only fail to prepare us for modern torture and warfare but also lead us into complicity with self-proclaimed moral and civic leaders. Whether considering a medieval painting of a Christian martyr or the immense popularity of grotesque historical tourist attractions such as the London Dungeons, Suspended Animation argues that images of death and violence are as pervasive today as they were in the Middle Ages, serving as potent reminders of the link between the modern and the medieval era.
Download or read book Reading Skin in Medieval Literature and Culture written by K. Walter and published by Springer. This book was released on 2013-03-20 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Skin is a multifarious image in medieval culture: the material basis for forming a sense of self and relation to the world, as well as a powerful literary and visual image. This book explores the presence of skin in medieval literature and culture from a range of literary, religious, aesthetic, historical, medical, and theoretical perspectives.
Download or read book Infernal Device written by Erik Ruhling and published by Red Wheel Weiser. This book was released on 2007-11-01 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Erik Ruhling assembles an unmatched array of torture tools invented exclusively for the infliction of pain and the ending of life, each carefully researched with an accompanying full-color, highly detailed rendering. This beautifully presented book features classics like the Iron Maiden and the Guillotine, as well as more rarified connoisseur’s fare such as the Scavenger’s Daughter and the Ear Chopper. And if the Tongue Tearer is not to your taste, there’s always the Breast Ripper or the Drunkard’s Cloak.
Download or read book Wounds and Wound Repair in Medieval Culture written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2015-10-05 with total page 669 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together essays that consider wounding and/or wound repair from a wide range of sources and disciplines including arms and armaments, military history, medical history, literature, art history, hagiography, and archaeology across medieval and early modern Europe.
Download or read book Gentile Tales written by Miri Rubin and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2004-05-03 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the late medieval period, accusations that Jews had abused Christ by desecrating the Eucharist created a powerful anti-Jewish movement and violent clashes quickly spread throughout Europe.
Download or read book Representing War and Violence written by Joanna Bellis and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2016 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of written and other responses to conflict in a variety of forms and genres, from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century.
Download or read book A History of Violence written by Robert Muchembled and published by Polity. This book was released on 2012 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents a history of violence in Europe and discusses the theory that violence has actually been in decline since the thirteenth century.
Download or read book Violence Against Women in Medieval Texts written by Anna Roberts and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2018-10-24 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together specialists from different areas of medieval literary study to focus on the role of habits of thought in shaping attitudes toward women during the Middle Ages. The essays range from Old English literature to the Spanish Inquisition and encompass such genres as romance, chronicles, hagiography, and legal documents.
Download or read book Ravishing Maidens written by Kathryn Gravdal and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2010-08-03 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this study of sexual violence and rape in French medieval literature and law, Kathryn Gravdal examines an array of famous works never before analyzed in connection with sexual violence. Gravdal demonstrates the variety of techniques through which medieval discourse made rape acceptable: sometimes through humor and aestheticization, sometimes through the use of social and political themes, but especially through the romanticism of rape scenes.
Download or read book Violence in Medieval Courtly Literature written by Albrecht Classen and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although courtly literature is often associated with a chivalrous and idyllic life, the fifteen original essays in this collection demonstrate that the quest for love in the world of medieval courtly literature was underpinned by violence. Lovers were rejected, mistrust ruled, rape was a rampant problem, and marriage was often characterized by brutality. Albrecht Classen brings together an outstanding group of historical, cultural, and literary scholars in this volume to investigate the complicated, nuanced, and often surprising unions of love and violence in courtly medieval literature.
