Overview
- Studies the influence of classical mythology on medieval literature
- Explores connections between the contemporary study of psychoanalysis and trauma studies with medieval literature
- Examines selfhood through French medieval love literature
Part of the book series: The New Middle Ages (TNMA)
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Table of contents (7 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Narcissism and Selfhood in Context
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Front Matter
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Selfhood and the Open Wound
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Front Matter
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The Wounded Self as Witness
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
This book offers analyses of texts from medieval France influenced by Ovid’s myth of Narcissus including the Lay of Narcissus, Alain de Lille’s Plaint of Nature, René d’Anjou’s Love-Smitten Heart, Chrétien de Troyes’s Story of the Grail and Guillaume de Machaut’s Fountain of Love. Together, these texts form a corpus exploring human selfhood as wounded and undone by desire. Emerging in the twelfth century in Western Europe, this discourse of the wounded self has survived with ever-increasing importance, informing contemporary methods of theoretical inquiry into mourning, melancholy, trauma and testimony. Taking its cue from the moment Narcissus bruises himself upon learning he cannot receive the love he wants from his reflection, this book argues that the construct of the wounded self emphasizes fantasy over reality, and that only through the world of the imagination—of literature itself—can our narcissistic injuries seemingly be healed and desire fulfilled.
Reviews
“It is a pleasure to share my experience of reading Nicholas Ealy's rich, insightful, and highly readable critical work on the use of the Narcissus myth in selected medieval French narrative poems. … Narcissism and Selfhood in Medieval French Literature has laid the groundwork for the next needed installment on this topic: the ways in which medieval narratives depict women's sense of self.” (Linda Marie Rouillard, The MedievalReview, scholarworks.iu.edu, June 21, 2021)
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Nicholas Ealy is Associate Professor of English and Modern Languages at the University of Hartford, USA. He specializes in the medieval cultures of France and Iberia and has published on the theme of narcissism in medieval literature, modern literature and film.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Narcissism and Selfhood in Medieval French Literature
Book Subtitle: Wounds of Desire
Authors: Nicholas Ealy
Series Title: The New Middle Ages
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27916-5
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-27915-8Published: 15 October 2019
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-27918-9Published: 15 October 2020
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-27916-5Published: 30 September 2019
Series ISSN: 2945-5936
Series E-ISSN: 2945-5944
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: IX, 238
Number of Illustrations: 3 b/w illustrations
Topics: Medieval Literature, European Literature, Classical and Antique Literature, Literary Theory, History of Medieval Europe, Adaptation Studies