Medieval Affect, Feeling, and Emotion (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature, Series Number 107)

Representations of feeling in medieval literature are varied and complex. This new collection of essays demonstrates that the history of emotions and affect theory are similarly insufficient for investigating the intersection of body and mind that late Middle English literatures evoke. While medieval studies has generated a rich scholarly literature on 'affective piety', this collection charts an intersectional new investigation of affects, feelings, and emotions in non-religious contexts. From Geoffrey Chaucer to Gavin Douglas, and from practices of witnessing to the adoration of objects, essays in this volume analyze the coexistence of emotion and affect in late medieval representations of feeling. Cover......Page 1 Half-title page......Page 3 Series page......Page 4 Title page......Page 5 Copyright page......Page 6 Contents......Page 7 List ofIllustrations......Page 9 List ofContributors......Page 10 Introduction......Page 13 Chapter 1 Weeping Like a Beaten Child: Figurative Language and the Emotions in Chaucer and Malory......Page 37 Chapter 2 Imagining Jewish Affect in the Siege of Jerusalem......Page 59 Chapter 3 Engendering Affect in Hoccleve’s Series......Page 82 Chapter 4 Becoming One Flesh, Inhabiting Two Genders: Ugly Feelings and Blocked Emotion in the Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale......Page 102 Chapter 5 Accounting for Affect in the Reeve’s Tale......Page 130 Chapter 6 Affect Machines......Page 151 Chapter 7 Witnessing and Legal Affect in the York Trial Plays......Page 170 Chapter 8 Affecting Forms: Theorizing with the Palis of Honoure......Page 193 Afterword: Three Letters......Page 215 Bibliography......Page 230 Index......Page 251 This collection conducts an intersectional investigation of affects, feelings, and emotions in non-religious late Middle English literatures. From Geoffrey Chaucer to Gavin Douglas, eight chapters by leading scholars examine the coexistence of emotion and affect in Late Medieval representations of feeling.