" When young Nevil Beauchamp was throwing off his midshipman's jacket for a holiday in the garb of peace, we had across Channel a host of dreadful military officers flashing swords at us for some critical observations of ours upon their sovereign, threatening Afric's fires and savagery. The case occurred in old days now and again, sometimes, upon imagined provocation, more furiously than at others. We were unarmed, and the spectacle was distressing. We had done nothing except to speak our minds according to the habit of the free, and such an explosion appeared as irrational and excessive as that of a powder-magazine in reply to nothing more than the light of a spark. It was known that a valorous General of the Algerian wars proposed to make a clean march to the capital of the British Empire at the head of ten thousand men; which seems a small quantity to think much about, but they wore wide red breeches blown out by Fame, big as her cheeks, and a ten thousand of that sort would never think of retreating. Their spectral advance on quaking London through Kentish hopgardens, Sussex corn-fields, or by the pleasant hills of Surrey, after a gymnastic leap over the riband of salt water, haunted many pillows. And now those horrid shouts of the legions of Caesar, crying to the inheritor of an invading name to lead them against us, as the origin of his title had led the army of Gaul of old gloriously, scared sweet sleep. We saw them in imagination lining the opposite shore; eagle and standard-bearers, and gallifers, brandishing their fowls and their banners in a manner to frighten the decorum of the universe. Where were our men?"

Beauchamp's Career is a novel by George Meredith. It depicts life and passion in upper-class extremist circles and ridicules the Conservative establishment in a humorous and precise manner that also entertains.

The complex relationship between psychic structures, social norms, and aesthetic representations is a challenge for every analysis of the historical manifestations of human desire. Pangs of Love and Longing: Configurations of Desire in Premodern Literature sets out to provide a deeper understanding of this relation by an assessment of linguistic and artistic configurations of desire in European literature from Antiquity to the Early Modern period. The aim is to explore historic continuities and ruptures in attitudes towards sexuality, pleasures and bodies, as these are represented in a variety of cultural forms, in order to demonstrate the plurality of premodern desire – and, ultimately, to offer fresh perspectives on our present reality. The seventeen scholars participating in the anthology bring together theories and assessments from different areas of the Humanities – German, French, Italian, Spanish, English, and Comparative Literature, History of Ideas and of Art, Theology, Philosophy and Gender Studies. They are all engaged in cross-disciplinary activities at universities in Sweden, Norway and Denmark, and they all participate in the Scandinavian network “Configurations of Desire in Premodern Literature” initiated in 2010.

From the mid-13th to the mid-18th century the ability to dance was an important social skill for both men and women. Dance performances were an integral part of court ceremonies and festivals and, in the 17th and 18th centuries, of commercial theatrical productions. Whether at court or in the public theater danced spectacles were multimedia events that required close collaboration among artists, musicians, designers, engineers, and architects as well as choreographers. In order to fully understand these practices, it is necessary to move beyond a consideration of dance alone, and to examine it in its social context. This original collection brings together the work of 12 scholars from the disciplines of dance and music history. Their work presents a picture of dance in society from the late medieval period to the middle of the 18th century and demonstrates how dance practices during this period participated in the intellectual, artistic, and political cultures of their day.

First published in 1996. This lavishly illustrated study is a comprehensive literary and social history which offers a record of changing genres, manuscript/book production, and cultural, political, and religious emphases by examining one of the most long lived popular legends in England. Guy of Warwick became part of history when he was named in chronicles and heraldic rolls. The power of the Earls of Warwick, especially Richard de Beauchamp, inspired the spread of the legend, but Guy's highest fame came in the Renaissance as one of the Nine Worthies. Widely praised in texts and allusions, Guy's feats were sung in ballads and celebrated on the stage in England and France. The first Anglo-Norman romance of Gui de Warewic, a Saxon hero of the tenth century was written in the early 13th century; the latest retellings of the legend are contemporary. Examples of Guy's legend can be found in two English translations that survived the Middle Ages, a new French prose romance, a didactic tale in the Gesta Romanorum, and late medieval versions in Celtic, German, and Catalan, as well as English. Guy remained a favorite Edwardian children's story and was featured in the Warwick Pageant, an historical extravaganza of 1906. The patriotism of World War II sparked a resurgence of interest that produced several new versions, mostly folkloric.

The Cambridge Companion to the American Graphic Novel explores the important role of the graphic novel in reflecting American society and in the shaping of the American imagination. Using key examples, this volume reviews the historical development of various subgenres within the graphic novel tradition and examines how graphic novelists have created multiple and different accounts of the American experience, including that of African American, Asian American, Jewish, Latinx, and LGBTQ+ communities. Reading the American graphic novel opens a debate on how major works have changed the idea of America from that once found in the quintessential action or superhero comics to show new, different, intimate accounts of historical change as well as social and individual, personal experience. It guides readers through the theoretical text-image scholarship to explain the meaning of the complex borderlines between graphic novels, comics, newspaper strips, caricature, literature, and art.

The “Kentucky Tragedy” was early America’s best known true crime story. In 1825, Jereboam O. Beauchamp assassinated Kentucky attorney general Solomon P. Sharp. The murder, trial, conviction, and execution of the killer, as well as the suicide of his wife, Anna Cooke Beauchamp—fascinated Americans. The episode became the basis of dozens of novels and plays composed by some of the country’s most esteemed literary talents, among them Edgar Allan Poe and William Gilmore Simms. In Murder and Madness, Matthew G. Schoenbachler peels away two centuries of myth to provide a more accurate account of the murder. Schoenbachler also reveals how Jereboam and Anna Beauchamp shaped the meaning and memory of the event by manipulating romantic ideals at the heart of early American society. Concocting a story in which Solomon Sharp had seduced and abandoned Anna, the couple transformed a sordid murder—committed because the Beauchamps believed Sharp to be spreading a rumor that Anna had had an affair with a family slave—into a maudlin tale of feminine virtue assailed, honor asserted, and a young rebel’s revenge. Murder and Madness reveals the true story behind the murder and demonstrates enduring influence of Romanticism in early America.

A reference work which presents the history of Britain in biographical form. The two volumes contain over 1500 short biographies of men and women who played an important part in their time.

During the first two decades of the eighteenth century, two evolving dance-historical realms intersected—theory and practice. While the French produced works on notation, choreography, and repertoire, German dance writers responded with an important body of work on dance theory. This book examines the reception of French dance in Germany.