Polemic: Language as Violence in Medieval and Early Modern Discourse

306 Pages·2016·1.893 MB·

by  Almut Suerbaum, George Southcombe, Benjamin Thompson (eds.)

Polemic
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Polemic
language as Violence in medieval and
early modern Discourse
Edited by
Almut SuerbAum
Somerville College, Oxford
GeorGe Southcombe
Sarah Lawrence College, USA
benjAmin thomPSon
Somerville College, Oxford
First published 2015 by Ashgate Publishing
Published 2016 by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
Copyright © Almut Suerbaum, George Southcombe and Benjamin Thompson 2015
Almut Suerbaum, George Southcombe and Benjamin Thompson have asserted their right
under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editorsof this
work.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used
only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
Polemic : language as violence in medieval and early modern discourse / edited by
Almut Suerbaum, George Southcombe and Benjamin Thompson.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4724-2506-5 (hardcover)
1. Rhetoric, Medieval. 2. Literature, Medieval.
3. Civilization, Medieval. I. Suerbaum, Almut, editor. II . Southcombe, George, 1978- editor.
III . Thompson, Benjamin, 1963- editor.
PN185.P65 2015
808.009’02–dc23
2014033501
ISBN 97814724-25065 (hbk)
ISBN 9781315601014 (ebk)
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Notes on Contributors ix
Introduction 1
George Southcombe, Almut Suerbaum and Benjamin Thompson
Part I: textual StrategIeS: rhetorIC between
InveCtIve and lament
1 between autobiography and apocalypse: The double
Subject of Polemic in Petrarch’s Liber sine nomine and
Rerum vulgarium fragmenta 17
Francesca Southerden
2 The ends of Polemic and the beginning of Lohengrin 43
Alastair Matthews
3 Feeling the Polemic of an early motet 65
Sean Curran
4 ‘why do you concern yourself with these words?’ rhetoric and
Polemic in medieval Castilian Female Saints’ lives 95
Emma Gatland
Part II: SoCIal PraCtICe: artICulatIon oF dISSent
and normatIve PraCtICe
5 dissing the teacher: Classroom Polemics in the early and
high middle ages 107
Monika Otter
6 language of violence: language as violence in vernacular
Sermons 125
Almut Suerbaum
vi Polemic
7 Psalms as Polemic: The english bible debate 149
Annie Sutherland
8 maximos the greek: Imprisoned in Polemic 165
C.M. MacRobert
Part III: hIStorICal narratIveS: reFormatIon,
renovatIon, reStoratIon
9 The Polemic of reform in the later medieval english Church 183
Benjamin Thompson
10 lamenting the Church? bishop andrzej Krzycki and
early reformation Polemic 223
Natalia Nowakowska
11 The Polemics of moderation in late Seventeenth-Century
england 237
George Southcombe
Bibliography 253
Index 287
Acknowledgements
For this second interdisciplinary collaboration at Somerville College, Oxford,
we have stretched our chronology beyond the Middle Ages so as to address a
question of continuity into the early modern period. Put polemically, we set
out to challenge the notion that polemic is an invention of the early modern
period, and our question has been whether its features are to be found earlier.
We are grateful to our co-contributors for their participation and for the
mutual enrichment which the process of discussion facilitated. Once again our
(largely polemic-free) meetings took place over the lunches and workshops for
which a college provides an ideal environment, and we are very grateful to our
colleagues and staff at Somerville for all their support, notably to Dave Simpson
and Richard Vowell for accommodation and meals. The college offered some
of those Somervillians who now hold posts abroad academic visitor status
for periods of research leave and thus enabled us to continue our academic
dialogue across the Atlantic. Our library, one of the college’s ornaments, once
again provided thought-provoking reading matter. We are grateful to Tom Gray
and his colleagues at Ashgate for taking on the volume, and to the anonymous
readers for their helpful suggestions. Others who have provided invaluable help
and entertainment include Jen Southcombe, Peter West and Nancy-Jane Rucker.
Since the publication of our previous volume in 2010, we have lost two of
our predecessors at Somerville, Christina Roaf and Olive Sayce, after full and
productive lives, and it is with as much pleasure as sadness that we remember
them here.
George Southcombe
Almut Suerbaum
Benjamin Thompson
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