Medievalism - the creative interpretation or recreation of the European Middle Ages - has had a major presence in the cultural memory of the modern West, and has grown in scale to become a global phenomenon. Countless examples across aesthetic, material and political domains reveal that the medieval period has long provided a fund of images and ideas that have been vital to defining `the modern`. Bringing together local, national and global examples and tracing medievalism`s unpredictable course from early modern poetry to contemporary digital culture, this authoritative Companion offers a panoramic view of the historical, aesthetic, ideological and conceptual dimensions of this phenomenon. It showcases a range of critical positions and approaches to discussing medievalism, from more `traditional` historicist and close-reading practices through to theoretically engaged methods. It also acquaints readers with key terms and provides them with a sophisticated conceptual vocabulary for discussing the medieval afterlife in the modern.

Features a historical span of essays from the early modern era to the present, surveying what the Middle Ages has meant to various later periods
Ranges across local and national medievalism to colonial and global medievalism, tracing its development from a European to a global phenomenon
Examines medievalism through a diversity of media including literature, architecture, music, film and videogames, demonstrating its many forms and broad expressive range

Table of Contents

Introduction: medievalism: scope and complexity Louise D`Arcens
1. Medievalism in British poetry Chris Jones
2. Medievalism and architecture John M. Ganim
3. Medievalism and cinema Bettina Bildhauer
4. Musical medievalism and the harmony of the spheres Helen Dell
5. Participatory medievalism, digital gaming, and role playing Daniel T. Kline
6. Early modern medievalism Mike Rodman Jones
7. Romantic medievalism Clare A. Simmons
8. Academic medievalism and nationalism Richard Utz
9. Medievalism and the ideology of war Andrew Lynch
10. Medievalism in Spanish America after independence Nadia Altschul
11. Neomedievalism and international relations Bruce Holsinger
12. Global medievalism and translation Candace Barrington
13. Medievalism and theories of temporality Stephanie Trigg
14. Queer medievalisms: a case study of Monty Python and the Holy Grail Tison Pugh.

Description
Contents
Resources
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About the Authors
Editor

Louise D`Arcens, University of Wollongong, New South Wales
Louise D`Arcens is Associate Professor in the English Literatures Program at the University of Wollongong, Australia, where she teaches medieval and medievalist literature. Her PhD and BA (Hons) are from the University of Sydney. She holds a Future Fellowship from the Australian Research Council (ARC) for the project `Comic Medievalism and the Modern World`, has been a recipient of grants from the Australian Academy of Humanities and the ARC, and is an Associate Investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, 100–1800. Her publications include the books Comic Medievalism: Laughing at the Middle Ages (2014) and Old Songs in the Timeless Land: Medievalism in Australian Literature, 1840–1910 (2011), as well as the edited volumes The International Medievalism and Popular Culture (Andrew Lynch, 2014), The Unsociable Sociability of Women`s Lifewriting (Anne Collett, 2010), and Maistresse of My Wit: Medieval Women, Modern Scholars (Juanita Ruys, 2004). She has also published numerous book chapters on medievalism as well as articles in journals such as Representations, the Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Screening the Past, Parergon, and Postmedieval.

Contributors

Louise D`Arcens, Chris Jones, John M. Ganim, Bettina Bildhauer, Helen Dell, Daniel T. Kline, Mike Rodman Jones, Clare A. Simmons, Richard Utz, Andrew Lynch, Nadia Altschul, Bruce Holsinger, Candace Barrington, Stephanie Trigg, Tison Pugh