God’s Patients approaches some of Chaucer’s most challenging poems with two philosophical questions in mind: How does action relate to passion, to being-acted-on? And what does it mean to submit one’s will to a law? Responding to critics (Jill Mann, Mark Miller) who have pointed out the subtlety of Chaucer’s approach to such fundamentals of ethics, John Bugbee seeks the source of the subtlety and argues that much of it is ready to hand in a tradition of religious (and what we woul...

Since its founding in 1943, Medievalia et Humanistica has won worldwide recognition as the first scholarly publication in America to devote itself entirely to medieval and Renaissance studies. Since 1970, a new series, sponsored by the Modern Language Association of America and edited by an international board of distinguished scholars and critics, has published interdisciplinary articles. In yearly hardcover volumes, the new series publishes significant scholarship, criticism, an...

Arguably the most decisive shift in the history of ideas in modern times was the complete demolition during the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries - in the wake of the Scientific Revolution - of traditional structures of authority, scientific thought, and belief by the new philosophy and the philosophes, culminating in Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau. In this revolutionary process which effectively overthrew all justicfication for monarchy, aristocracy, and ecclesiastical power, as ...

The eighteenth century Enlightenment marks the beginning of the modern age when the scientific method and belief in reason and progress came to hold sway over the Western world. In the twentieth century, however, the Enlightenment has often been judged harshly for its apparently simplistic optimism. Here a master historian goes back to the sources to give us both a more sophisticated and intriguing view of the philosophes, their world and their ideas.

One of the first books to shine a light on the broad scope of translation studies,this Routledge Translation Classic is widely regarded as a pillar of the discipline.Authored by one of the most infl uential translation theorists of the twentiethcentury, Translation, Rewriting, and the Manipulation of Literary Fame showshow rewriting – translation, anthologization, historiography, criticism, editing –infl uences the reception and can...

Ovid was one of the greatest writers of classical antiquity, and arguably the single most influential ancient poet for post-classical literature and culture. In this Cambridge Companion, chapters by leading authorities from Europe and North America discuss the backgrounds and contexts for Ovid, the individual works, and his influence on later literature and art. Coverage of essential information is combined with exciting critical approaches. This Companion is designed both as an accessible...

Medieval French literature encompasses 450 years of literary output in Old and Middle French, mostly produced in Northern France and England. These texts, including courtly lyrics, prose and verse romances, dits amoureux and plays, proved hugely influential for other European literary traditions in the medieval period and beyond. This Companion offers a wide-ranging and stimulating guide to literature composed in medieval French from its beginnings in the ninth century until the Renaissanc...

Until now the advent of Western romantic love has been seen as a liberation from—or antidote to—ten centuries of misogyny. In this major contribution to gender studies, R. Howard Bloch demonstrates how similar the ubiquitous antifeminism of medieval times and the romantic idealization of woman actually are.Through analyses of a broad range of patristic and medieval texts, Bloch explores the Christian construction of gender in which the flesh is feminized, the feminine is aestheticiz...

The Franciscan monk, humanist and physician François Rabelais, who flourished in sixteenth-century France, is widely considered as the Renaissance's greatest comic writer. His work - including most notably Gargantua and Pantagruel - continues to enthral readers with its complex and delicately crafted humour. 'Rabelaisian' and 'Gargantuan' have entered the lexicon but are often misunderstood; this Companion explains the literary and historical reality behind these notions. It provides an ac...

Hanging, flaying, beating, anti-Semitic violence and the torture of sodomites: the darker side of life in medieval Europe has fuelled the imagery of many books and films: we know exactly what is meant in the film Pulp Fiction, when one character declares ‘I’m gonna get medieval on yo’ ass’. But the stereotype of uncontrolled violence inflicted in the distant past is not only historically misleading, it also tricks us into believing that there is an unbridgeable gulf between modern...

The book looks at how people, things, and new forms of knowledge created "publics" in early modern Europe, and how publics changed the shape of early modern society. The focus is on what the authors call "making publics" — the active creation of new forms of association that allowed people to connect with others in ways not rooted in family, rank or vocation, but rather founded in voluntary groupings built on the shared interests, tastes, commitments, and desires of individuals. By creatin...

Since the dawn of history people have used charms and spells to try to control their environment, and forms of divination to try to foresee the otherwise unpredictable chances of life. Many of these techniques were called 'superstitious' by educated elites.For centuries religious believers used 'superstition' as a term of abuse to denounce another religion that they thought inferior, or to criticize their fellow-believers for practising their faith 'wrongly'. From the Middle Ages to the En...