Wow! eBook
Anchoritism in the Middle Ages: Texts and Traditions
Author(s): Catherine Innes-Parker and Naoë Kukita Yoshikawa (Author)
- Publisher: University of Wales Press
- Publication Date: 15 April 2013
- Language: English
- Print length: 256 pages
- ISBN-10: 9780708326015
- ISBN-13: 0708326013
Book Description
This volume explores medieval anchoritism (the life of a solitary religious recluse) from a variety of perspectives. The individual essays conceive anchoritism in broadly interpretive categories: challenging perceived notions of the very concept of anchoritic rule and guidance; studying the interaction between language and linguistic forms; addressing the connection between anchoritism and other forms of solitude (particularly in European tales of sanctity); and exploring the influence of anchoritic literature on lay devotion. As a whole, the volume illuminates the richness and fluidity of anchoritic texts and contexts and shows how anchoritism pervaded the spirituality of the Middle Ages, for lay and religious alike. It moves through both space and time, ranging from the third century to the sixteenth, from England to the Continent and back.
Editorial Reviews
Review
Wide-ranging and fully accessible, this book reflects an exciting international scholarly collaboration, offering a broad and compelling analysis of the influence of anchoritism and its associated traditions upon the spirituality of Europe and beyond during the Middle Ages. Disrupting traditional geographical boundaries, the essays draw together with some of the more canonical writings a number of hitherto under-explored or overlooked expressions of this form of the solitary life and does much to extend our understanding of the spiritual, religious, social and ideological imperatives behind this extraordinary vocation. As such, it makes a most welcome addition to, and extends the range, of the ground-breaking series of volumes on medieval anchoritism produced by the University of Wales Press in recent years, and will provide a valuable new resource for scholars, students and the general reader alike. –Dr Liz Herbert McAvoy, Reader Gender Studies and Medieval Literature, Swansea University
About the Author
Catherine Innes-Parker is Professor of Medieval Literature in the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Prince Edward Island. Naoë Kukita Yoshikawa is Professor of English at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Shizuoka University
