Medievalism and Reception

The relationship between medievalism and reception explored via a rich
variety of case studies.At the intersection of the twin fields of medievalism and reception
studies is the timely and fascinating question of how a contested past is deployed in the
context of a conflicted and contradictory present. Despite their shared roots and a
fundamental orientation towards the entanglement of past and present, the term
"e;reception"e; is rarely taken up in medievalist scholarship, and they have
developed along parallel but divergent lines, evolving their own emphases, problematics,
sensibilities, vocabularies, and critical tools.This book is the first to reunite these two
fields. Its introduction and first chapter clearly set out their tangled intellectual and
disciplinary histories. The ten essays that follow reflect upon the relationship between
medievalism and reception in theory and in practice, through thematically, temporally, and
geographically expansive case studies, engaging with theories of translation,
postcolonialism, fan studies, persona studies, and Indigenous studies. Individual topics
examined include the cultural impact of Robin Hood; the Tulsa race massacre; the crusades in
the nineteenth century; later representations of Chaucer's works; Victorian representations
of Anne Boleyn; and media such as Star Wars and Game of Thrones. As a whole, this collection
models and demonstrates the value of a new and self-aware approach to medievalism, enriched
by a conscious and critical redeployment of reception theories and methodologies.