We learn how women may conceive girls or boys during intercourse, how hermaphrodites are made, and how a woman who has lost her virginity might find it again. The volume includes some extraordinary original texts. Pet lovers beware. Not a new book, but it is still the foremost example of how contemporary theory can help us understand medieval culture. Plenty more recent books try to do this, but Bloch remains the best model, not least because he is not in thrall to any single theory.
Postmodernism suits the Middle Ages and vice versa.
From hypertext and feminism to queer theory, history, and material philology, terrific books are being published-and they're selling. This gutsy book gives a philosophy of history and lyric poetry that blasts the boundaries between high and low culture to argue that in 1492 Spain expelled, along with the Jews and Arabs, the cultural pluralism that made poetry. Eric Clapton's 'Layla,' based on a medieval Persian romance, is one of her most intriguing examples. In tracing the iconography of the annunciation from the early to late Middle Ages, Wenzel depicts a change from body language to written language. His 'poetics of visuality' uncovers codes governing communication for a variety of visual artifacts from medieval court culture.