Pleasure in the Middle Ages: 24 (International Medieval Research) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 250357520X ISBN 13: 9782503575209

Publisher: Brepols N.V., 2018

Synopsis

This volume explores the diverse manifestations and uses of pleasure in medieval culture. Pleasure is a sensation, an affirmation, a practice, and is at the core of the medieval worldview, no less than pain. Applying a variety of methodological perspectives, the essays collected here analyse the role of pleasure in relation to a variety of subjects such as the human body, love, relationships, education, food, friendship, morality, devotion, and mysticism. They also integrate a wide range of sources including literature (monastic to courtly), medical texts, illuminated prayer books, iconography, and theatrical plays. Each document, each discipline, and thus each essay combine to provide a complex and diversified picture of medieval joys and delights - a picture that shows the extent to which pleasure is engrained in the period's culture. This collection shows how pleasure in the Middle Ages is at once a coveted feeling and a constant moral concern, both the object and the outcome of a constant negotiation between earthly and divine imperatives. "(...) the volume provides a diverse collection of approaches with a couple of exemplary contributions." (Claire Taylor Jones, in The Medieval Review, 18.12.04)

Edition details

• Publisher: Brepols N.V.
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 250357520X
• ISBN 13: 9782503575209
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 386
• Editor: Cohen Hanegbi Naama, Nagy Piroska