Elizabeth Archibald

Want to know how to garden with lobsters? How to sober up? Grow a beard? Or, simply, how to make a perfect cheesy omelette? Look no further than Ask the Past. From medieval headache remedies to Renaissance pick-up lines, Ask the Past brings you advice that will make you laugh out loud and shake your head in amazement. Here are the answers to the questions you've always wanted to ask - 'How do I impress my boss?' or 'How do I put out a fire' - and some that you didn't know you needed to. Brimming with insight and con brio zest, and illustrated with charming images from rare books, Ask the Past offers a surprising vision of the past, together with a hilarious menu of solutions to the knotty problems of the present -like how to kill a snake with a radish!

Timeless Advice from Old Books

Ask the Past

Melissa Ridley Elmes

Evelyn Meyer

Nichole Burgdorf

An interdisciplinary and trans-historical investigation of the representation of ethics in Arthurian Literature. From its earliest days, the Arthurian legend has been preoccupied with questions of good kingship, the behaviours of a ruling class, and their effects on communities, societies, and nations, both locally and in imperial and colonizing contexts. Ethical considerations inform and are informed by local anxieties tied to questions of power and identity, especially where leadership, service, and governance are concerned; they provide a framework for understanding how the texts operate as didactic and critical tools of these subjects. This book brings together chapters drawing on English, Welsh, German, Dutch, French, and Norse iterations of the Arthurian legend, and bridging premodern and modern temporalities, to investigate the representation of ethics in Arthurian literature across interdisciplinary and transhistorical lines. They engage a variety of methodologies, including gender, critical race theory, philology, literature and the law, translation theory, game studies, comparative, critical, and close reading, and modern editorial and authorial practices. Texts interrogated range from Culhwch and Olwen to Parzival, Roman van Walewein, Tristrams Saga, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and Malory's Morte Darthur. As a whole, the approaches and findings in this volume attest to the continued value and importance of the Arthurian legend and its scholarship as a vibrant field through which to locate and understand the many ways in which medieval literature continues to inform modern sensibilities and institutions, particularly where the matter of ethics is concerned.

Ethics in the Arthurian Legend

Jean Wood

OAC Review Index (University of Guelph)

Dorothy White

A. M. Ferguson

Eleanor Wright

Joan Tripp

E. E. Brown

E. J. Kennedy

Jean Park

Eila Ross

Eleanor Telford

Muriel Hughes

Betty Horne

Claire McIntosh

E. L. McFadden

Anna Kline

Beatrice Lehman

Harriet Black

T. E. Winn

Lois Robinson

A. M. R. Hamilton

Marjorie Carroll

D. B. Pond

D. E. Mahar

G. R. Larsson

M. E. Jenkins

E. C. Jeffries

M. E. Jackson

C. Boyd Slemon

E. B. Hamilton

H. P. Hachborn

H. I. Gilroy

C. K. Mader

D. E. Armitage

E. A. Vipon

E. E. Ranton

M. E. McCallum

C. B. Godderham

A. Y. Gibson

R. M. Dewan

C. M. Day

Betty Zimmerman

Betty Mader

William Currie

Eleanor Houck

Marion Houck

Dorothy Slemon

Dorothy Houck

Betty Atkinson

Harchibald Hunt Atkinson

Betty Illsey

Gordon L. E. Nixon

Betsy Bowman Harrison

Mary Meaken Thompson

Elizabeth Bess Hewson

Eila Lawson

Francis G. Lawson

Macdonald Alumnae, OAC Review, V.54, No.2, Nov.1941

Incest is a remarkably frequent theme in medieval literature; it occurs in a wide range of genres, including romances, saints's lives, and exempla. Historically, the Church in the later Middle Ages was very concerned about breaches of the complex laws against incest, which was defined very broadly at the time to cover family relationships outside the nuclear family and also spiritual relationships through baptism. Medieval writers accepted that incestuous desire was a widespread phenomenon among women as well as men. They are surprisingly open about incest, though of course they disapprove of it; in many exemplary stories incest is identified with original sin, but the moral emphasizes the importance of contrition and the availability of grace even to such heinous sinners. This study begins with a brief account of the development of medieval incest laws, and the extent to which they were obeyed. Next comes a survey of classical incest stories and their legacy; many were retold in the Middle Ages, but they were frequently adapted to the purposes of Christian moralizers. In the three chapters that follow, homegrown medieval incest stories are grouped by relationship: mother-son (focusing on the Gregorius legend), father-daughter (focusing on La Manekine and its analogues), and sibling (focusing on the Arthurian legend). The final chapter considers the very common medieval trope of the Virgin Mary as mother, daughter, sister and bride of Christ, the one exception to the incest taboo. In western society today, incest has recently been recognized as a serious social problem, and has also become a frequent theme in both fiction and non-fiction, just as it was in the Middle Ages. This interdisciplinary study is the first broad survey of medieval incest stories in Latin and the vernaculars (mainly French, English and German). It situates the incest theme in both literary and cultural contexts, and offers many thought-provoking comparisons and contrasts to our own society in terms of gender relations, the power of patriarchy, the role of religious institutions in regulating morality, and the relationship between life and literature.

Incest and the Medieval Imagination

Want to know how to garden with lobsters? How to sober up? Grow a beard? Or, simply, how to make a perfect cheesy omelette? Look no further than Ask the Past. Chock-full of advice that has (and some that hasn't!) stood the test of time, Ask the Past is the tongue-in-cheek compilation of hilarious and true answers to life's questions, drawn from actual antique sourcebooks by a historian and bibliophile. From medieval headache remedies to Renaissance pick-up lines, Ask the Past brings you advice that will make you laugh out loud and shake your head in amazement. Here are the answers to the questions you’ve always wanted to ask – 'How do I impress my boss?' or 'How do I put out a fire' – and some that you didn’t know you needed to. Brimming with advice both wise and weird, and illustrated throughout with charming images from rare books, Ask the Past offers a surprising vision of the past, together with a hilarious menu of solutions to the knotty problems of the present – like how to kill a snake with a radish!

Pertinent and Impertinent Advice from Yesteryear

Ad Putter

For more than a thousand years, the adventures of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table have been retold across Europe. They have inspired some of the most important works of European literature, particularly in the medieval period: the romances of Chrétien de Troyes, Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur. In the nineteenth century, interest in the Arthurian legend revived with Tennyson, Wagner and Twain. This Companion outlines the evolution of the legend from the earliest documentary sources to Spamalot, and analyses how some of the major motifs of the legend have been passed down in both medieval and modern texts. With a map of Arthur's Britain, a chronology of key texts and a guide to further reading, this volume itself will contribute to the continuing fascination with the King and his many legends.

The Cambridge Companion to the Arthurian Legend

David F. Johnson

Arthurian Literature has established its position as the home for a great diversity of new research into Arthurian matters. It delivers fascinating material across genres, periods, and theoretical issues. TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT

Arthurian Literature XXXII

Anthony Stockwell Garfield Edwards

Malory's Morte Darthur - text, history and reception - expertly appraised by international scholars.

A Companion to Malory

Arthurian Literature XXXI

Arthurian Literature has established its position as the home for a great diversity of new research into Arthurian matters. Delivers some fascinating material across genres, periods, and theoretical issues. TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT

Arthurian Literature XXVII

Arthurian Literature XXX

Senior Lecturer in English Elizabeth Archibald

A comparative study of one of the most familiar stories in medieval romance (used by Gower, Shakespeare, etc.), from late Antiquity into the Renaissance.

Medieval and Renaissance Themes and Variations : Including the Text of the Historia Apollonii Regis Tyri with an English Translation

Apollonius of Tyre

Covers the evolution of the legend over time and analyses the major themes that have emerged.

Elizabeth Archibald

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