Medieval crossover: reading the secular against the sacred - 2011

Medieval Crossoverexplores a wealth of case studies in French, English, and Latin texts that concentrate on instances of paradox, collision, and convergence. Newman convincingly and with great clarity demonstrates the widespread applicability of the crossover concept as an analytical tool, examining some very disparate works.These include French and English romances about Lancelot and the Grail;the mystical writing of Marguerite Porete (placed in the context of lay spirituality, lyric traditions, and theRomance of the Rose); multiple examples of parody (sexually obscene, shockingly anti-Semitic, or cleverly litigious); and René of Anjou's two allegorical dream visions. Some of these texts are scarcely known to medievalists; others are rarely studied together. Newman's originality in her choice of these primary works will inspire new questions and set in motion new fields of exploration for medievalists working in a large variety of disciplines, including literature, religious studies, history, and cultural studies.

 

"As Barbara Newman points out, in the wake of the bruising debates about 'Robertsonianism,' scholars preferred to focus on different kinds of questions, but the work produced during the intervening decades can now fruitfully inform a return, with a somewhat different orientation, to the thorny questions of how the sacred and the secular interact in medieval literary texts, and indeed how and to what extent these categories functioned within medieval cultural imagination. Newman's book tackles these questions head-on in a variety of texts, and is sure to stimulate further research in this area." —Sylvia Huot, University of Cambridge