Early Modern Medievalisms : The Interplay Between Scholarly Reflection and Artistic Production

Modernity has historically defined itself by relation to classical antiquity on the one hand, and the medieval on the other. While early modernity’s relation to Antiquity has been amply documented, its relation to the medieval has been less studied. This volume seeks to address this omission by presenting some preliminary explorations of this field. In seventeen essays ranging from the Italian Renaissance to Enlightenment France, it focuses on three main themes: continuities and discontinuities between the medieval and early modern, early modern re-uses of medieval matter, and conceptualizations of the medieval. Collectively, the essays illustrate how early modern medievalisms differ in important respects from post-Romantic views of the medieval, ultimately calling for a re-definition of the concept of medievalism itself.

Contributors include: Mette Bruun, Peter Damian-Grint, Anne-Marie De Gendt, Daphne Hoogenboezem, Tiphaine Karsenti, Joost Keizer, Waldemar Kowalski, Elena Lombardi, Coen Maas, Pieter Mannaerts, Christoph Pieper, Jacomien Prins, Adam Shear, Paul Smith, Martin Spies, Andrea Worm, and Aurélie Zygel-Basso.

Alicia C. Montoya, Ph.D. (2005), University of Leiden, is Rosalind Franklin Fellow in Romance Languages at the University of Groningen (The Netherlands). She has published on French medievalism, book history and women authors, including Marie-Anne Barbier et la tragédie post-classique (Champion, 2007).

Sophie van Romburgh, Ph.D. (2002), University of Leiden, is a lecturer in English philology at the University of Leiden (The Netherlands). She studies early modern scholarship on medieval Germanic literature, and has published the correspondence of Francis Junius (Brill, 2004).

Wim van Anrooij, Ph.D. (1990) in philology, University of Leiden, is Professor of Dutch Literature until Romanticism at the University of Leiden (The Netherlands). He has published on heralds and heraldic poetry, the Nine Worthies and medieval miscellanies.