by C. David Benson (1986)
David Benson's lively new interpretation of Chaucer's great story collection attributes the variety and contrast of the tales to the unique literary style of each narrative. In contrast to the popular "dramatic approach," which assumes that the diversity of the tales comes from the supposed psyches of the pilgrim tellers, Benson argues that each tale is a fully formed expression of an individual kind of poetry. Each is constructed on its own distinct literary principles so that the Canterbury Tales is best seen as a drama of poetic styles, not personalities.
Patricia Pogal
This book examines the origin of the medieval Spanish concept of light and the poetic function which luminous imagery serves. It concludes with an investigation of the traditional element (radiance) in the balladry of three Spanish poets: Lope de Vega, the Duque de Rivas, and Federico García Lorca.
Evan S. Connell
"The Crusades have begun. Wave upon wave of Christian pilgrims rush to assault the growing power of Moslems in the Holy Lands. Battles will continue for the next two hundred years. Every able man becomes a soldier of the Cross. When a man is prevented by old age or ill health, he sends his son. Women, too, join to fight alongside their husbands and fathers. Two centuries long, this common cause is the defining war of what was becoming the spirit of the Western world.". "The author has commented, "I think of this as a book about the Crusades, not an 'historical novel' - a term that suggests imaginary experiences and unlikely conversations. Monologues and dialogues in this book are paraphrased or condensed from those in medieval documents. Every meeting, every conversation, every triumph or defeat, no matter how small, was recorded centuries ago.""--BOOK JACKET.
Nick Tosches
Celebrating the dark origins of our most American music, Country reveals a wild shadowland of history that encompasses blackface minstrels and yodeling cowboys; honky-tonk hell and rockabilly heaven; medieval myth and musical miscegenation; sex, drugs, murder; and rays of fierce illumination on Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, and others, famous and forgotten, whose demonology is America's own. Profusely and superbly illustrated, Country stands as one of the most brilliant explorations of American musical culture ever written.
Lloyd and Jennifer Laing
Spanning almost 500 years, from 1066 to 1485, the Middle Ages were times of extremes: rich in art, scholarship and adventure, and burdened with poverty, servitude and plague. This was the age of the Crusades and the pilgrimage; of King Arthur and Robin Hood; of Gothic cathedrals and the illuminated manuscript; of the chivalric code, the feudal system and the Black Death. With meticulous research and an eye for a good story, the Laings have constructed an intricate tableau of life in the medieval world, using existing evidence of art and architecture to explore all spheres of life, from the dizzy heights of courtly love to the fields of the humble serf. With major sections on urban, rural, Church and court society, and including absorbing detail on medieval pastimes, science and superstition, art, attitudes to women and the more gruesome aspects of medical practice, this richly illustrated book brings to life the imagination, ambitions and everyday realities of the world which formed the foundations of modern western society.