Though manifestations of play represent a burgeoning subject area in the study of post-medieval responses to the Middle Ages, they have not always received the respect and attention they deserve. This volume seeks to correct those deficiencies.
Though manifestations of play represent a burgeoning subject area in the study of post-medieval responses to the Middle Ages, they have not always received the respect and attention they deserve. This volume seeks to correct those deficiencies via six essays that directly address how the Middle Ages have been put in play with regard to Alice Munro’s 1977 short story ‘The Beggar Maid’; David Lowery’s 2021 film
The Green Knight; medievalist archaisms in Japanese video games; runic play in Norse-themed digital games; medievalist managerialism in the 2020 video game
Crusader Kings III; and neomedieval architectural praxis in the 2014 video game
Stronghold: Crusader II. The approaches and conclusions of those essays are then tested in the second section’s six essays as they examine ‘muscular medievalism’ in George R. R. Martin’s 1996 novel
A Game of Thrones; the queering of the Arthurian romance pattern in the 2018-20 television show
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power; the interspecies embodiment of dis/ability in the 2010 film
How to Train Your Dragon; late-nineteenth and early twentieth-century nationalism in Irish reimaginings of the Fenian Cycle; post-bellum medievalism in poetry of the Confederacy; and the medievalist presentation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s 2020-21 Covid inoculation.
Table of Content
Preface – Karl Fugelso
I: Medievalism in Play
Sexual Play and Medievalism: Alice Munro’s ‘The Beggar Maid’ – M. J. Toswell
Spoiling the Sport, Upping the Ante, and Calling His Bluff: Why St. Winifred Appears in David Lowery’s 2021 Film
The Green Knight – Kevin J. Harty
‘My guise doth not incur thy trust’: Translating English Medievalism and Archaism to and from Japanese in a Video Game Context – Jacob W. Runner
‘Boy, what do those runes say?’: Runic Play in Norse-Themed Digital Games – Tom Birkett
Middle (Ages) Managers:
Crusader Kings III as Medievalist Managerialism – Andrew Baerg
‘Castles are like possessions: merely temporary!’: Neomedieval Architectural Praxis in
Stronghold: Crusader II – Kevin Moberly and Brent Moberly
II: Other Responses to Medievalism
George R. R. Martin’s ‘Muscular Medievalism’ in A Game of Thrones: Masculinity, Violence, and Fantasy – Steven Bruso
Big Sword-in-the-Stone Energy: Queering the Arthurian Romance Pattern in She-Ra and the Princesses of Power – Jessica Stanley
Interspecies Embodiment of Dis/Ability in How to Train Your Dragon – Leah Haught
Fenian Medievalisms, from Imperialist to Insurrectionist: Reimagining the Fenian Cycle and the Future of Ireland, 1878-1916 – Vanessa K. Iacocca
Medievalism and the Old South: Metaphors and References in the Works of Poets of the Confederacy – Michel Aaij
From Holy Lance to Covid-19 Syringe: Benjamin Netanyahu as Curator and Saint – Galit Noga-Banai
About the author
M.J. TOSWELL is a Professor at the University of Western Ontario.
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