Sodomy, masculinity, and law in medieval literature: France and England, 1050-1230

William Burgwinkle surveys poetry and letters, histories and literary fiction - including Grail romances - to offer a historical survey of attitudes towards same-sex love during the centuries that gave us the Plantagenet court of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, courtly love, and Arthurian lore. B...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Burgwinkle, William E. 1951- (Author)
Format: Electronic eBook
Language:English
Published: Cambridge Cambridge University Press 2004
Series:Cambridge studies in medieval literature 51
Subjects:
Links:https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511484735
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511484735
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511484735
Summary:William Burgwinkle surveys poetry and letters, histories and literary fiction - including Grail romances - to offer a historical survey of attitudes towards same-sex love during the centuries that gave us the Plantagenet court of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, courtly love, and Arthurian lore. Burgwinkle illustrates how 'sodomy' becomes a problematic feature of narratives of romance and knighthood. Most texts of the period denounce sodomy and use accusations of sodomitical practice as a way of maintaining a sacrificial climate in which masculine identity is set in opposition to the stigmatised other, for example the foreign, the feminine, and the heretical. What emerges from these readings, however, is that even the most homophobic, masculinist and normative texts of the period demonstrate an inability or unwillingness to separate the sodomitical from the orthodox. These blurred boundaries allow readers to glimpse alternative, even homoerotic, readings
Physical Description:1 online resource (xii, 298 pages)
ISBN:9780511484735
DOI:10.1017/CBO9780511484735