Manmade Marvels in Medieval Culture and Literature (The New Middle Ages)

✍ Scribed by Scott Lightsey

• Year: 2007
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 229
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Manmade marvels of the later medieval courts--animated golden birds, mechanical angels, and other fantastic machines--were not merely amusing distractions, but also agents of social negotiation and political import.  In Manmade Marvels, the dancing metal peacocks, animated statuary, and spectacular illusions of the romance tradition are disembedded from traditional literary representation as supernatural fictions, and situated in the political culture where mechanical marvels were fashioned to delight courts, garner prestige, and symbolize power. This book provides a synthesis of court politics and technological history, intellectual traditions, and the practices of everyday life. Lightsey restores these marvels to the cultural roles they played as they were created by craftsmen and consumed by elite culture, invigorating our understanding of the role of craft in embellishing noble lives with the marvelous.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover......Page 1
Contents......Page 10
List of Figures......Page 12
Acknowledgments......Page 14
Introduction: Clever Devices......Page 18
1 By Angel’s Hand: “Piers Plowman” and London’s Crowning Gesture......Page 44
2 Chaucer and the Culture of Commodified Mirabilia......Page 72
3 Chaucer’s Body: The Subject of Technology......Page 98
4 Monstrous Body Politics: Alexander in the Confessio Amantis......Page 124
5 Craft and Idolatry: “Sotylle” Devices in Mandeville’s Travels......Page 154
Conclusion: Marvelous Craft......Page 176
Notes......Page 180
Bibliography......Page 208
A......Page 222
C......Page 223
E......Page 224
H......Page 225
M......Page 226
P......Page 227
S......Page 228
Z......Page 229