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"Middle age Fiction."
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Kiss my relics
Conservative thinkers of the early Middle Ages conceived of sensual gratification as a demonic snare contrived to debase the higher faculties of humanity, and they identified pagan writing as one of the primary conduits of decadence. Two aspects of the pagan legacy were treated with particular distrust: fiction, conceived as a devious contrivance that falsified God's order; and rhetorical opulence, viewed as a vain extravagance. Writing that offered these dangerous allurements came to be known as \"hermaphroditic\" and, by the later Middle Ages, to be equated with homosexuality.
At the margins of these developments, however, some authors began to validate fiction as a medium for truth and a source of legitimate enjoyment, while others began to explore and defend the pleasures of opulent rhetoric. Here David Rollo examines two such texts—Alain de Lille's De planctu Naturae and Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun's Roman de la Rose—arguing that their authors, in acknowledging the liberating potential of their irregular written orientations, brought about a nuanced reappraisal of homosexuality. Rollo concludes with a consideration of the influence of the latter on Chaucer's Pardoner's Prologue and Tale.
eBook
Divide me by zero
As a young girl, Katya Geller learned from her mother that math was the answer to everything. Now, at forty, she finds this wisdom tested: she has lost the love of her life, she is in the middle of a divorce, and has just found out that her mother is dying. Half-mad with grief, Katya turns to the unfinished notes for her mother's last textbook, hoping to find guidance in mathematical concepts. With humor, intelligence, and unfailing honesty, Katya traces back her life's journey: her childhood in Soviet Russia, her parents' great love, the death of her father, her mother's career as a renowned mathematician, and their immigration to the United States. She is, by turns, an adrift newlywed, an ESL teacher in an office occupied by witches and mediums, a restless wife, an accomplished writer, a flailing mother of two, a grieving daughter, and, all the while, a woman in love haunted by a question: how to parse the wild, unfathomable passion she feels through the cool logic of mathematics?
Book
Margins
This chapter contains sections titled:
Exploration, Civilization, Rule
Quest and Adventure
Vision and Destiny
The Otherworld
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Sir Orfeo
References
Book Chapter
Hoop hustle
Brian Worth Jr. plans on trying out for his middle school's basketball team, but the trouble is he has always relied on his height to give him an advantage and that is no longer enough--but at the local senior center, where he reluctantly volunteers, he discovers a friend in George, a former player, who sets out to teach him some of the skills he is missing.
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“Mean and Shabby and Wrinkled”: The Experience of Middle Age in American Hard-Boiled Detective Fiction
This article examines the nuance of aging masculinity presented in hard-boiled detective fiction, something that is frequently lost amid sleek Hollywood portrayals of these characters. The detectives of this genre are inevitably middle-aged men and aging—along with vulnerability—is thus a fundamental, if often disavowed, element of the form. Among the early authors of this school, Raymond Chandler proves to be the most reflective on the topic of mortality. This article examines The Long Goodbye (1953) as a guiding illustration of hard-boiled insights into aging, along with supporting examples from the genre’s history, particularly the works of Dashiell Hammett. The question of hard-boiled realism is of special note to this discussion, as these works ostensibly offer a platform for more “true” representations of male bodies as they age. However, Chandler’s hard-boiled realism, typified in the 1944 essay “The Simple Art of Murder”, bases authenticity on style and language rather than on verisimilitude. This conflicting realism undoubtedly explains the halting representations of aging in hard-boiled fiction. The detective’s experience of age can be disavowed with a well-chosen quip or a well-placed right hook. This essay will read this inherent tension—that is, between articulation and renunciation— with respect to male aging within the hard-boiled ethos.
Journal Article
The whole story of half a girl
When Sonia's father loses his job and she must move from her small, supportive private school to a public middle school, the half-Jewish half-Indian sixth-grader experiences culture shock as she tries to navigate the school's unfamiliar social scene, and after her father is diagnosed with clinical depression, she finds herself becoming even more confused about herself and her family.
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The Possibilities of Medieval Fiction
\"The Possibilities of Medieval Fiction\" argues that marvels in medieval travel literature function as unlikely possibilities that appeal to readers precisely because of their indeterminacy. Disputing the common idea that medieval readers accepted marvels as true, it argues that marvels' uncertainty was an aesthetic principle designed to pique imagination. It focuses on Mandeville's Travels and shows how its author carefully positions marvels between inventions and facts.
Journal Article
Performing the Self: A Bakhtinian Carnivalistic Reading of Amita Parikh's The Circus Train
This study employs Mikhail Bakhtin's theory on \"Carnival\", to interpret Amita Parikh's novel The Circus Train (2022) as part of the broader framework of historical fiction that examines themes related to identity, belonging and psychological resilience against the backdrop of World War II. It addresses a gap in previous research by being the first to utilize a carnivalistic approach to the analysis of The Circus Train, demonstrating how Bakhtin's theory on Carnival is applicable to identity-construction processes and self-discovery within the context of chaotic, liminal spaces beyond the medieval celebrations Bakhtin made reference to. The methodology used in this study consists of a qualitative approach to literature, combining Bakhtin's carnival model with a close textual analysis in order to understand the relationship between the grotesque realism within literature and social hierarchies and the transformation of individuals. This study indicated three findings: 1. The novel critiques established power relationships of the time, allowing for the marginalized characters to re-negotiate their identities and reclaim their agency; 2. The use of grotesque imagery enhances our understanding of the themes surrounding adaptation and survival and gives us insight into how humans made sense of the world in a time of crisis; 3. The \"Carnival\" becomes a transformative strategy of individuals fostering resilience, liberation and self-definition in the face of destruction. By integrating Bakhtinian theory with contemporary literary discourse, this study offers a deeper understanding of how narrative spaces nurture emotional development and identity formation in historically disrupted contexts. It further recommends extending carnivalistic frameworks to the analysis of literature concerned with war, displacement, and belonging, as such approaches uncover hidden dimensions of human agency, trauma, and renewal, positioning The Circus Train as a pivotal contribution to modern studies of identity and transformation.
Journal Article
Diversity and age stereotypes in portrayals of older adults in popular American primetime television series
To examine the prevalence and diversity of older adults on primetime television, and age stereotyping in these portrayals, we analysed the contents of 112 episodes of popular American television series aired between 2004 and 2018. We identified 6.6 per cent of characters as aged 65 and older – a slight improvement to the values reported in previous studies. However, older adult characters are still grossly under-represented, considering the actual proportion of older adults in the general population of the United States of America. Further, the typical older character was young-old, male, Caucasian, middle-class, able-bodied and straight – if his sexuality was referenced. Older women still face double discrimination in media representations. In addition, older adult characters with ethnicities other than Caucasian and African American are virtually invisible in primetime fiction series. Similarly, old-old characters, sexual minorities and persons with disabilities are particularly rare among older adult characters in this type of programming. Finally, portrayals of 51.9 per cent of characters included at least some elements of age stereotypes, most of which were positive. The most commonly applied positive and negative stereotypes were found to be the golden ager and the shrew, respectively. The findings are discussed in the context of the dominant discourse of ageing and the potential implications of how various social groups perceive ageing and older adults.
Journal Article