In Medieval Crossover: Reading the Secular against the Sacred; Barbara Newman offers a new approach to the many ways that sacred and secular interact in medieval literature; arguing that the sacred was the normative; unmarked default category against which the secular always had to define itself and establish its niche. Newman refers to this dialectical relationship as "crossover"mdash;which is not a genre in itself; but a mode of interaction; an openness to the meeting or even merger of sacred and secular in a wide variety of forms. Newman sketches a few of the principles that shape their interaction: the hermeneutics of "both/and;" the principle of double judgment; the confluence of pagan material and Christian meaning in Arthurian romance; the rule of convergent idealism in hagiographic romance; and the double-edged sword in parody. Medieval Crossover explores 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.
2012-09-01 2016-09-16File Name: B01LW8XGRB
Review
