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  • Madness in Medieval French Literature: Identities Found and Lost

    Madness in Medieval French Literature by Huot, Sylvia;

    Identities Found and Lost

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      • Publisher's listprice GBP 187.50
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    84 656 Ft

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    Product details:

    • Publisher OUP Oxford
    • Date of Publication 11 September 2003

    • ISBN 9780199252121
    • Binding Hardback
    • No. of pages236 pages
    • Size 224x144x18 mm
    • Weight 416 g
    • Language English
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    Short description:

    Written by one of the leading critics in medieval studies, this new book explores the representations of madness in medieval French literature. Drawing on a range of modern psychoanalytic theories and an impressive range of texts from the twelfth to the fifteenth century, Sylvia Huot focuses on the relationship between madness and identity, both personal and collective, and demonstrates the cultural significance of madness in the Middle Ages.

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    Long description:

    Madness is a frequent theme in medieval French literature. It afflicts the two greatest heroes of the Arthurian world, Lancelot and Tristan, as well as numerous other knights and unlucky lovers in courtly tradition. It also appears in devotional literature, whether in the form of the 'holy fool' who impersonates madness as a kind of penance or in the motif of lunatics cured through the miraculous intervention of a saint. These texts manifest a wide range of attitudes towards madness, which may be associated with nobility and refinement of character, with chivalric or spiritual transcendence, with tragic illness and impairment, with comic ineptitude, or with sin and degradation. Tracing these various depictions allows for a study of how and why madness is used in different texts and different genres.

    This new book, from one of the leading critics in medieval studies, ties in with contemporary interest in the politics of identity, and literary constructions of identity. There are many studies of gender, sexuality, race and ethnicity, and class in medieval literature and society, but far fewer of madness. Yet madness is the ultimate 'queerness' or 'otherness', the limit of the human condition. Madness has been identified as an important topic in feminist criticism, but has been explored largely with regard to nineteenth- and twentieth-century studies. The cultural significance of madness in the Middle Ages is often misrepresented in contemporary discussions. Sylvia Huot redresses that imbalance.

    ...a highly distinctive contribution to the study of cultural concepts of madness. It is an excellent achievment...

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    Table of Contents:

    Introduction
    Abject insanity, madness sublime
    The specular madman
    Madness and social exclusion
    Heterosexuality and its discontents
    The living dead
    Madness and the body
    Conclusion
    Bibliography
    Index

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