Rev. ed. of: The Princeton encyclopedia of poetry and poetics / Alex Preminger and T.V.F. Brogan, co-editors; Frank J. Warnke, O.B. Hardison, Jr., and Earl Miner, associate editors. 1993.

The Cathars and the Albigensian Crusade brings together a rich and diverse range of medieval sources to examine key aspects of the growth of heresy and dissent in southern France in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and the Church’s response to that threat through the subsequent authorisation of the Albigensian crusade. Aimed at students and scholars alike, the documents it discusses – papal letters, troubadour songs, contemporary chronicles in Latin and the vernacular, and inquisitorial documents – reflect a deeper perception of medieval heresy and the social, political and religious implications of crusading than has hitherto been possible. The reader is introduced to themes which are crucial to our understanding of the medieval world: ideologies of crusading and holy war, the complex nature of Catharism, the Church’s implementation of diverse strategies to counter heresy, the growth of papal inquisition, southern French counter-strategies of resistance and rebellion, and the uses of Latin and the vernacular to express regional and cultural identity. This timely and highly original collection not only brings together previously unexplored and in some cases unedited material, but provides a nuanced and multi-layered view of the religious, social and political dimensions of one of the most infamous conflicts of the High Middle Ages. This book is a valuable resource for all students, teachers and researchers of medieval history and the crusades.

We make sense of love with fantasies, stories that shape feelings that are otherwise too overwhelming, incoherent, and wayward to be tamed. For love is a complex, bewildering, and ecstatic emotion covering a welter of different feelings and moral judgments. Drawing on poetry, fiction, letters, memoirs, and art, and with the aid of a rich array of illustrations, historian Barbara H. Rosenwein explores five of our most enduring fantasies of love: like-minded union, transcendent rapture, selfless giving, obsessive longing, and insatiable desire. Each has had a long and tangled history with lasting effects on how we in the West think about love today. Yet each leads to a different conclusion about what we should strive for in our relationships. If only we could peel back the layers of love and discover its “true” essence. But love doesn’t work like that; it is constructed on the shards of experience, story, and feeling, shared over time, intertwined with other fantasies. By understanding the history of how we have loved, Rosenwein argues, we may better navigate our own tumultuous experiences and perhaps write our own scripts.

The conflict and contact between Muslims and Christians in the Middle Ages is among the most important but least appreciated developments of the period from the seventh to the fourteenth century. Michael Frassetto argues that the relationship between these two faiths during the Middle Ages was essential to the cultural and religious developments of Christianity and Islam—even as Christians and Muslims often found themselves engaged in violent conflict. Frassetto traces the history of those conflicts and argues that these holy wars helped create the identity that defined the essential characteristics of Christians and Muslims. The polemic works that often accompanied these holy wars was important, Frassetto contends, because by defining the essential evil of the enemy, Christian authors were also defining their own beliefs and practices. Holy war was not the only defining element of the relationship between Christians and Muslims during the Middle Ages, and Frassetto explains that everyday contacts between Christian and Muslim leaders and scholars generated more peaceful relations and shaped the literary, intellectual, and religious culture that defined medieval and even modern Christianity and Islam.

The first known troubadour, Guilhem IX of Aquitaine, VII Count of Poitou, was a versatile man who fought against the Moors in Spain, lost an army on his way to the First Crusade, and for a time, like his great-grandson Richard Cœur de Lion, possessed more land and power in France than the king himself. His poetry reflects the hatred of convention and love of the unexpected that marks his life. In its easy swing between self-mockery and seriousness, idealised love and bawdy laughter, it introduces into troubadour poetry a sense of conflict which, after Guilhem's death in 1127, found a different and wider expression in an opposition between the metaphysical poetry of troubadours who sang with 'dark', 'rich' words and the love songs of poets who composed in a clear, 'easy' style on the single plane of their courtly experience. Dr Topsfield examines the work of a number of the greatest troubadours from the viewpoint of their attitudes to love.

The songs of the troubadour poets of the south of France were a pervasive influence in the development of the European lyric (and indeed other genres) from the twelfth century to the Renaissance and beyond. Much troubadour poetry is on the topic of love, and is composed from a first-person position. This book is a full-length study of this first-person subject position in its relation to language and society. Using theoretical approaches where appropriate, Sarah Kay discusses to what extent this first person is a 'self' or 'character', and how far it is self-determining. Dr Kay draws on a wide range of troubadour texts, and provides close readings of many of them, as well as translating all medieval quotations into English in order to make the discussion accessible to the non-specialist. Her book will be of interest both to scholars of medieval literature, and to anybody investigating subjectivity in lyric poetry.

Originally published during the early part of the twentieth century, the Cambridge Manuals of Science and Literature were designed to provide concise introductions to a broad range of topics. They were written by experts for the general reader and combined a comprehensive approach to knowledge with an emphasis on accessibility. H. J. Chaytor's volume The Troubadours was published in 1912. It introduces the reader to the concept of courtly love and to the role of the troubadour poets, tracing their influence across medieval Europe.

Featuring twenty major works of European poetry over a period of a thousand years, this collection charts the development of verse from the fall of the Roman Empire to the birth of the Renaissance. Contrary to popular belief, the poetry of the Dark Ages enjoyed a pioneering development, exploring new metres and complex imagery. Throughout the Middle Ages, poetry adopted numerous forms across the continent, from the epic greatness of the ‘chanson de geste’ to the sublime lyrical qualities of love poetry. This eBook provides a rich sample of medieval poetry; from the earliest dawn of English literature to the unparalleled brilliance of Dante; from the courtly adventures of Arthurian legend to the stirring lays of the Vikings; from the Eastern magic of Georgia to the ribald genius of Chaucer; this collection will immerse you in the perilous, amusing and tantalising world of the Middle Ages. (Version 1) * Beautifully illustrated with images relating to the poets’ lives and works * Concise introductions to the works * Most of the poems appear with their original medieval texts, as well as an English translation — ideal for students * Images of how the original manuscripts first appeared, giving your eReader a taste of the medieval texts * Excellent formatting of the poems * Easily locate the sections you want to read * Features three critical works on the development of medieval literature * Scholarly ordering of texts into chronological order Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to see our wide range of poet titles CONTENTS: Medieval Poetry Hymn by Cædmon (7th century) Christ II by Cynewulf (8th century) (Tr. Raymond Wilson Chambers) Beowulf (c.1000) (Tr. William Morris) The Song of Roland (c. 1050) (Tr. C. K. Moncreiff) The Poem of the Cid (c. 1140) (Tr. Robert Southey) Chronicle of the Norman Conquest from ‘Roman de Rou’ by Wace (c. 1170) (Tr. Edgar Taylor) Yvain, the Knight of the Lion by Chrétien de Troyes (c. 1180) (Tr. William Wistar Comfort) Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach (c. 1210) (Tr. Jessie Weston) The Troubadours (1100-1350) by H. J. Chaytor The Knight in the Panther’s Skin by Shota Rustaveli (c. 1190) (Tr. Marjory Wardrop) The Song of the Nibelungs (c. 1200) (Tr. Daniel Bussier Shumway) Lays of Marie de France (c. 1210) (Tr. Eugene Mason) The Romance of the Rose by Guillaume de Lorris [PARTIAL TRANSLATION] (c. 1230) (Tr. Geoffrey Chaucer) Poetic Edda (c. 13th century) (Tr. Benjamin Thorpe) Wine, Women and Song: Mediæval Latin Students’ Songs (c. 13th century) (Tr. John Addington Symonds) The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (1320) (Tr. H. F. Cary) Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (c. 1375) (Tr. Jessie Weston) Sonnets by Francesco Petrarca (c. 1374) (Tr. Thomas Campbell) Piers Plowman by William Langland (c. 1380) Edited by Thomas Wright The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1400) The Criticism The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory by George Saintsbury Medieval English Literature by W. P. Ker Epic and Romance: Essays on Medieval Literature by W. P. Ker Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to browse through our range of poetry titles or buy the entire Delphi Poets Series as a Super Set