Ethics in post-medieval responses to the Middle Ages form the main focus of this volume. The six opening essays tackle such issues as the legitimacy of reinventing medieval customs and ideas, at what point the production and enjoyment of caricaturizing the Middle Ages become inappropriate, how medievalists treat disadvantaged communities, and the tension between political action and ethics in medievalism. The eight subsequent articles then build on this foundation as they concentrate on capitalist motives for melding superficially incompatible narratives in medievalist video games, Dan Brown's use of Dante's Inferno to promote a positivist, transhumanist agenda, disjunctures from medieval literature to medievalist film in portrayals of human sacrifice, the influence of Beowulf on horror films and vice versa, portrayals of war in Beowulf films, socialism in William Morris's translation ofBeowulf, bias in Charles Alfred Stothard'sMonumental Effigies of Great Britain, and a medieval source for death in the Harry Potter novels. The volume as a whole invites and informs a much larger discussion on such vital issues as the ethical choices medievalists make, the implications of those choices for their makers, and the impact of those choices on the world around us.

Karl Fugelso is Professor of Art History at Towson University in Baltimore, Maryland.

Contributors: Mary R. Bowman, Harry Brown, Louise D'Arcens, Alison Gulley, Nickolas Haydock, Lisa Hicks, Lesley E. Jacobs, Michael R. Kightley, Phillip Lindley, Pascal J. Massie, Lauryn S. Mayer, Brent Moberley, Kevin Moberley, Daniel-Raymond Nadon, Jason Pitruzello, Nancy M. Resh, Carol L. Robinson, Christopher Roman, M.J. Toswell.

Details

First Published: 15 May 2014
13 Digit ISBN: 9781843843764
Pages: 264
Size: 23.4 x 15.6
Binding: Hardback
Imprint: D.S.Brewer
Series: Studies in Medievalism
Subject: Medieval Literature
BIC Class: DSBB

Details updated on 29 Apr 2014

Contents

• 1  Editorial Note
• 2  The Dangers of the Search for Authenticity?: The Ethics of Hallowe'en
• 3  Living Memory and the Long Dead: The Ethics of Laughing at the Middle Ages
• 4  Justice Human and Divine: Ethics in Margaret Frazer's Medievalist Dame Frevisse Series
• 5  The Song Remains the Same: Crossing Intersections to Create an Ethical World via an Adaptation of Everyman for Everyone
• 6  Bringing Elsewhere Home: A Song of Ice and Fire's Ethics of Disability
• 7  The Ethical Movement of Daenerys Targaryen
• 8  What if the Giants Returned to Albion for Vengeance?: Crusade and the Mythic Other in theKnights of the Nine Expansion toThe Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
• 9  The Dark Ages of the Mind: Eugenics, Amnesia, and Historiography in Dan Brown'sInferno
• 10  Plastic Pagans: Viking Human Sacrifice in Film and Television
• 11  Meat Puzzles: Beowulf and Horror Film
• 12  Words, Swords, and Truth: Competing Visions of Heroism inBeowulf on Screen
• 13  Socialism and Translation: The Folks of William Morris'sBeowulf
• 14  "We Wol Sleen this False Traytor Deeth": The Search for Immortality in Chaucer's Pardoner's Tale and J. K. Rowling's The Deathly Hallows
• 15  Intention or Accident? Charles Alfred Stothard'sMonumental Effigies of Great Britain