A Handbook of Middle English Studies

441 Pages·2013·4.043 MB·English

by  Marion Turner (editor)

A Handbook of
Middle English Studies
Wiley-BlackwellCriticalTheoryHandbooks
Each volume in the Critical Theory Handbooks series features a collection of
newly-commissioned essays exploring the use of contemporary critical theory in
the study of a given period, and the ways in which the period serves as a site for
interrogating and reframing the practices of modern scholars and theorists. The
volumesareorganizedaroundasetofkeytermsthatdemonstratetheengagement
by literary scholars with current critical trends, and aim to increase the visibility
of theoretically-oriented and -informed work in literary studies, both within the
disciplineandtostudentsandscholarsinotherareas.
Published:
AHandbookofRomanticismStudies
EditedbyJoelFaflakandJuliaM.Wright
AHandbookofAnglo-SaxonStudies
EditedbyJacquelineStodnickandRene´eR.Trilling
AHandbookofMiddleEnglishStudies
EditedbyMarionTurner
Forthcoming:
AHandbookofModernismStudies
EditedbyJean-MichelRabate´
A Handbook of
Middle English Studies
Edited by Marion Turner
A John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Publication
Thiseditionfirstpublished2013
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Contents
Acknowledgments xi
NotesonContributors xiii
Abbreviations xvii
ListofFigures xix
Introduction 1
MarionTurner
Part1: SelfhoodandCommunity 13
1 Imagination 15
AranyeFradenburg
2 Memory 33
AnkeBernau
3 Desire 49
ElizabethScala
4 Gender 63
NicolaMcDonald
5 Sexuality 77
GlennBurgerandStevenF.Kruger
6 PublicInteriorities 93
DavidLawton
7 Race 109
JeffreyJeromeCohen
viii Contents
8 Animality 123
SusanCrane
Part2: ConstructingTexts,ConstructingTextualHistory 135
9 Authorship 137
VincentGillespie
10 Audience 155
JoyceColeman
11 Manuscript 171
AlexandraGillespie
12 MaterialCulture 187
JessicaBrantley
13 Genre 207
JulieOrlemanski
14 Aesthetics 223
MauraNolan
15 CanonFormation 239
ThomasA.Prendergast
16 Periodization 253
DavidMatthews
Part3: PoliticsandPlaces 267
17 Sovereignty 269
RobertMills
18 Class 285
IsabelDavis
19 Church 299
LauraVarnam
20 City 315
JonathanHsy
21 Margins 331
CorinneSaunders
22 Ecology 347
CarolynDinshaw
23 Nation 363
KathyLavezzo
Contents ix
24 Language 379
LauraAshe
25 Postcolonialism 397
JohnM.Ganim
26 AGlobalMiddleAges 413
GeraldineHeng
Index 431
Acknowledgments
Manythankstoallthecontributorsforembracingthisprojectwithsuchenthusiasm
anddiligence;your essayshaveinspired meand changedmy mindinallkindsof
ways. Thanks also to Emma Bennett, for commissioning the book, to the rest of
the team at Wiley-Blackwell, and to the insightful anonymous readers. I want to
thankmycolleagues and particularly my studentsat Jesus and Oriel colleges,and
attheEnglishFacultyattheUniversityofOxford.Iamalsogratefultomyparents,
DavidandSheelagh,andtomyfriendsfortheirsupportandinterestinmywork.
Elliothasbeen,asever,mygreatestsupportandmostastuteadvisor,alwayspatient,
encouraging,andgenuinelyinterestedintheproject–I’mverygratefulforhiscalm
presenceinmylife.Thisbookgestatedandcameintobeingatthesametimeasmy
children;muchoftheworkforitwasdoneintherareoccasionswhentheyslept,so
thisbookisforthem.
Notes on Contributors
LauraAsheisUniversityLectureratWorcesterCollege,Oxford.AuthorofFiction
and History in England, 1066–1200 (2007), and coeditor of The Exploitations of
MedievalRomance(2010),sheisnowwritingtheOxfordEnglishLiteraryHistory,
vol.1:1000–1350.
AnkeBernauisSeniorLecturerinMedievalLiteratureandCultureattheUniversity
ofManchester.SheistheauthorofVirgins:ACulturalHistory(2007),andiscurrently
workingonliterarinessandforgettinginthefifteenthandsixteenthcenturies.
Jessica Brantley is Associate Professor of English at Yale University. She is the
author of Reading in the Wilderness: Public Performance and Private Devotion in
Late-MedievalEngland(2007).
GlennBurgerisProfessorofEnglishandMedievalStudiesatQueensCollegeand
the Graduate Center, City University of New York. He is the author of Chaucer’s
Queer Nation (2003) and is completing a book on conduct literature, titled The
AffectiveContract.
Jeffrey Jerome Cohen is Professor of English and Director of the Medieval and
Early Modern Studies Institute at George Washington University. His research
includesthehistoryofmonsters,postcolonialtheory,hybridity,andtheinhuman.
Joyce Coleman teaches in the English Department, University of Oklahoma. Her
work on late medieval literary reception, performance, and patronage includes
PublicReadingandtheReadingPublicinLateMedievalEnglandandFrance(2005)
andmanyarticles.