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    Beards and Texts

    Images of masculinity in medieval German literature

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    Author(s)
    Coxon, Sebastian
    Language
    English
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    Abstract
    Beards and Texts explores the literary portrayal of beards in medieval German texts from the mid-twelfth to the early sixteenth centuries. It argues that as the pre-eminent symbol for masculinity the beard played a distinctive role throughout the Middle Ages in literary discussions of such major themes as majesty and humanity. At the same time beards served as an important point of reference in didactic poetry concerned with wisdom, teaching and learning, and in comedic texts that were designed to make their audiences laugh, not least by submitting various figure-types to the indignity of having their beards manhandled. Four main chapters each offer a reading of a work or poetic tradition of particular significance (Pfaffe Konrad’s Rolandslied; Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Willehalm; ‘Sangspruchdichtung’; Heinrich Wittenwiler’s Ring), before examining cognate material of various kinds, including sources or later versions of the same story, manuscript variants and miniatures and further relevant beard-motifs from the same period. The book concludes by reviewing the portrayal of Jesus in vernacular German literature, which represents a special test-case in the literary history of beards. As the first study of its kind in medieval German studies, this investigation submits beard-motifs to sustained and detailed analysis in order to shed light both on medieval poetic techniques and the normative construction of masculinity in a wide range of literary genres.
    URI
    https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/51822
    Keywords
    Germany; beards; beards in german literature; german literatures; medieval german literature; medieval germany; area studies; literature; literary studies
    DOI
    10.14324/111.9781787352216
    ISBN
    9781787352216, 9781787352223, 9781787352230, 9781787352247, 9781787352254, 9781787354654, 9781787354715, 9781787356672, 9781787352216
    Publisher
    UCL Press
    Publisher website
    https://www.uclpress.co.uk/
    Publication date and place
    London, 2021
    Imprint
    UCL Press
    Classification
    Medieval history
    Literary studies: classical, early & medieval
    Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers
    Rights
    https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode
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    License

    • If not noted otherwise all contents are available under Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

    Credits

    • logo EU
    • This project received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 683680, 810640, 871069 and 964352.

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