Medievalism In America

The United States of Medievalism contemplates the desires, dreams, and contradictions inherent in experiencing the Middle Ages in a nation that is so temporally, spatially, and at times politically removed from them. The European Middle Ages have long influenced the national landscape of the United States through the medieval sites that permeate its self-announced republican landscapes and cities. Today, American-built medievalisms continue to shape the nation’s communities, collapsing the binaries between past and present, medieval and modern, European and American. The volume’s chapters visit the nation’s many medieval-inspired spaces, from Sherwood Forest in Texas to California’s San Andreas Fault. Stops are made in New York City’s churches, Boston’s gardens, Philadelphia’s Bryn Athyn Cathedral, Orlando’s Magic Kingdom, Appalachian highways, Minnesota’s Viking Villages, New Orleans’s Mardi Gras, and the Las Vegas Strip. As the editors and their fellow essayists take the reader on this cross-country trip across the United States, they ponder the cultural work done by the nation’s medievalized spaces. In its exploration of a seemingly distant period, this collection challenges the underexamined legacy of medievalism on the western side of the Atlantic. Full of intriguing case studies and reflections, this book is informative reading for anyone interested in the contemporary vestiges of the Middle Ages.

Studies on the influence of the middle ages, and in particular the Arthurian legends, on the culture of North America. Fifteen essays trace North America's enthusiastic engagement with the middle ages from the Revolution to Disney. There are eight studies of the American reception of Arthur: in art (Abbey, Rosenthal), literature (Canadian writers, John Ciardi), scholarship (R.S. Loomis), politics (JFK), and popular culture (Arthurian youth groups, Disneyland, the Excalibur Casino). Other topics include Tom Paine, Elbertus Hubbard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, C.B. DeMille, popular treatments of Villon, the roots of the New Mexican cuento, and the rhetoric of the Gulf War. Contributors: ROGER WOOD, KYMBERLEY N. PINDER, ERICA E. HIRSHLER, ALAN LUPACK, CHARLOTTE OBERG, RAYMOND H. THOMPSON, STAN GALLOWAY, ROBIN BLAETZ, ROBERT D. PECKHAM, JEFF RIDER, KLAUS P. JANKOFSKY, MARY MORSE, PAMELA S. MORGAN, SUSAN ARONSTEIN, NANCY COINER, JONATHAN M. ELUKIN

This fascinating collection explores America's appropriations and fabrications of the Middle Ages, revealing the nation's complicated love affair with a past it never had, but has created from history and imagination.

The twenty-six essays in this volume examine the process of creating the Middle Ages. In doing so, they honour Leslie Workman, who has led the revival of the study of medievalism in the past two generations, and leads this sub-discipline towards the comprehensiveness that Lord Acton as early as 1859 had promised: 'Two great principles divide the world, and contend for the mastery: antiquity and the Middle Ages. These are the two civilizations that have preceded us, the two elements of which ours is composed. All political as well as religious questions reduce themselves practically to this. This is the great dualism that runs through our society.` While using differnt approaches and discussing topics in a variety of specialised fields, the contributions clearly centre on negotiating the reception of medieval culture in the Early Modern, Modern and Contemporary periods, thus presenting a broad and representative picture of current research in medievalism. Contributors include: Tabula Gratulatoria (Leslie Workman); Richard Utz and Tom Shippey, 'Medievalism in the Modern World: Introductory Perspectives'; Theresa Ann Sears, 'The Anxiety of Authority and Medievalizing the New World'; Richard Osberg, 'Humanist Allusions and Medieval Themes: The Receyving of Queen Anne, London, 1533'; John Simons, 'Christopher Middleton and Elizabethan Medievalism'; Bernard Rosenthal, 'Medievalism and the Salem Witch Trials'; Clare Simmons, 'Absent Presence: The Romantic-Era Magna Charta and the English Constitution'; R.J. Smith, 'The Swanscombe Legend and the Historiography of Kentish Gavelkind'; David Barclay, 'Representing the Middle Ages: Court Festivals in Nineteenth-Century Prussia'; Ulrich Muller, 'Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles? Walther von der Vogelweide, Hoffman von Fallersleben and the Song of the Germans: Medievalism, Nationalism and/or Racism'; Roger Simpson, 'St. George and the Pendragon'; Tom Shippey, 'The Death-Song of Ragnar Lodbrok: A Study in Sensibilities'; Alice Chandler, 'Carlyle and the Medievalism of the North'; Werner Wunderlich, 'Medieval Images: Joseph Viktor von Scheffel's Ekkehard and St. Gall'; Felicia Bonaparte, 'The (Fai)Lure of the Aesthetic Ideal and the (Re)Formation of Art: The Medieval Paradigm that Frames The Picture of Dorian Gray'; William Calin, 'Dante on the Edwardian Stage: Stephen Phillips' Paolo and Francesca; Kathleen Verduin, 'Medievalism, Classicism, and the Fiction of E.M. Forster; William D. Paden, 'Reconstructing the Middle Ages: The Monk's Sermon in The Seventh Seal; Rosemary Welsh, 'Theorizing Medievalism: The Case of Gone with the Wind; Gwendolyn Morgan, 'Gnosticism, the Middle Ages, and the Search for Responsibility: Im

"Uses a feudal model to analyze contemporary American society, comparing its essential characteristics to those of medieval European societies"--Provided by publisher.

What if American History was just a little different? Consider an American history with it's own version of the Middle Ages. Now consider trying to survive this new history. This new history of America has grand castles and fierce Knights of honor. This new history has evil as well. A history unlike any you have ever heard. This is that story."

Concentrating on Europe, this volume's sixteen essays discuss different forms of medievalism in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and Serbia. Medievalism, the whole spectrum of post-medieval response to the middle ages, is now accepted as a vital key to the understanding of Western culture and society from 1500 to the present, pervading every aspect of our time, from the popular and artistic to the scholarly. Studies in Medievalism, now published annually, is the one series to provide a regular forum for discussion of medievalism. This volume is devoted to medievalism in Europe, excludingEngland (the subject of Volume IV,1992). Contributors from Europe and America consider medievalism in Germany, Italy, France, Spain and Serbia over a wide range of topics from eighteenth-century French politics and nineteenth-century German nationalism to contemporary Italian film.