Dr. Mike George Publishes Chapter
in New Book

Intersections of Sexuality and the Divine in Medieval Culture
The Word Made Flesh

Susannah Mary Chewning, Editor

Ashgate Publishing Ltd
Gower House, Croft Road
Aldershot, Hampshire
GU11 3HR United Kingdom

February, 2005

As distinct from the many recent collections and studies of medieval literature and culture that have focused on gender and sexuality as their major themes, this collection considers and serves to re-think and re-situate religion and sexuality together. Including 'traditional' works such as Chaucer and the Pearl-poet, as well as less well known and studied texts – such as alchemical texts and the Wohunge group – the contributors here focus on the meeting point of these two often-examined concepts. They seek an understanding of where sex and religion distinguish themselves from one another, and where they do not.

This volume locates the Divine and the Erotic within the continuum of experience and devotion that characterize the paradox of the medieval world. Not merely original in their approaches, these authors seek a new vision of how these two inter-connected themes – sexuality and the Divine – meet, connect, distinguish themselves, and merge within medieval life, language, and literature.

Contents

Foreword; Introduction, Susannah Mary Chewning.

Part I Secular Literature and Drama:

Religion, sexuality, and representation in the York Joseph's Troubles pageant, Michael W. George

The gentrification of Eve: sexuality, speech, and self-regulation in noble conduct literature, Mark Addison Amos

Queer copulation and the pursuit of divine conjunction in two Middle English alchemical poems, Cynthea Masson.

Part II Romance and Narrative:

Via erotica/via mystica: a tour de force in the Merchant's Tale, M.C. Bodden

'My Lemman Swete': gender and passion in Pearl, Catherine S. Cox.

Part III Saints and Religious Women:

Spectators of martyrdom: corporeality and sexuality in the Liflade ant te Passiun of Seinte Margarete, Julie E. Fromer

'The woman who shares the king's bed': the innocent eroticism of Gertrud the Great of Helfta, Alexandra Barratt

Virgin, mother, whore: the sexual spirituality of Margery Kempe, Liz Herbert McAvoy.

Part IV Visionaries and Mystics:

Corpus Mysticum: text as body/body as text, David A. Salomon

Cross-dressing souls: same-sex desire and the mystic tradition in A Talkyng of the Loue of God, Michelle M. Sauer

'Mi bodi henge/wið þi bodi': the paradox of sensuality in þe Wohunge of Ure Lauerd, Susannah Mary Chewning.

Further Information
Affiliation: Susannah Chewning, Union County College, USA
ISBN: 0 7546 4065 5
Publication Date: 02/2005
Number of Pages: 228 pages

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