Where the Middle Ages Begin
I do not wish to enlist, on either side, in the battle between historians and novelists. What I would like is to suggest a foray which may at first glance seem a minor skirmish, but which may significantly affect the way in which a writer portrays people who once lived, particularly famous people.
As a literary couple that has stood the test of time, their roles as leaders, and roles in their relationship with each other reflects society’s understanding and belief of where gender roles belong in respect to leadership roles.
I took the tropes of your typical hard-boiled detective series—the lone detective with a chip on his shoulder–who is hard drinking, tough-talking, tough fighting character–the dark streets and dark doings of crime and subculture of criminals and intrigue, the femme fatale—and let them slide into the medieval era.
I’ve wanted to write a novel set during the latter half of the 14th century for a long time. Even by medieval standards, this was a brutal and bloody era, with much of Europe plunged into dynastic wars.
An interview with author Nancy Brown on her latest medieval offering: “Song of the Vikings: Snorri and the Making of Norse Myths”.
There was something so real in the languages that he created, and critics wanted to find the inspirations behind Tolkien‘s worlds. Elves, dwarves, men, hobbits, and various other creatures occupied the pages of his books, but the languages he created were complex and had real elements in them. Examples of his invented languages were those spoken by the Elves, Sindarin and Quenya.
What is the contract between man and equine that allows a beast ten times our size and one hundred times our strength to willingly serve in our ambitions? What magnetism (and who placed it) is it that draws humanity and horses together?
The findings of this thesis confirm that the values of LOTR and the Kingdom are notably similar, and that the reader of LOTR does indeed derive from it an experience of what the Kingdom ideally is. But all this is “under the surface”, and Tolkien did not impose his Christianity.
Set in Ireland’s majestic Ring of Kerry in the year 800, the tale is an inspiring coming-of-age adventure that deals with life lessons on the backdrop of an educational and entertaining plot
A British author is using the innovative crowdfunding publisher Unbound to raise fund to create a new novel set in eleventh-century England.
It is a story will all the ingredients of epic tragedy: a brilliant, courageous and handsome nobleman travels to distant lands, fights battles, marries princesses, is elected King but is slain by treachery, still relatively young, just before he is crowned.
It was really Margaret of Anjou, Henry VI’s wife, with her ambition and determination – her refusal to let the Duke of York assume control, after her husband had fallen into a catatonic stupor – that kickstarted the civil war.
A book review of the new release “Edric the Wild”, by Jayden Woods
‘The whole plot becomes so much more sensational when set in the Elizabethan period, and the struggle the conscientious individual to ‘do the right thing’ becomes a battle in itself.’
Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael Chronicles, however, were no instant success. They did not make the New York Times best-seller list, as Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose did, which was published in 1980 in Italian and translated into English in 1983. The first Brother Cadfael novel had a modest run of 5,000 hard-cover copies, largely for library sales.
Fantasy stories trace their roots back to far older tales: the myths and legends of various cultures, which grew from oral storytelling in the days when myths were the only explanation for the mysterious workings of the real world.
In America, novels ranging from The Great Gatsby to John Steinbeck’s Cup of Gold borrowed Arthurian conventions to discuss contemporary American life.
This paper was part of the Tolkien at Kalamazoo sessions.
My goal in writing this fictional novella is twofold: to make Beowulf more accessible to modern readers and to expound upon the less articulated female point of view in the poem.
Both heroes exist to save their people from doom. According to Geoffrey of Monmouth, who authored Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain) in 1136, Arthur ‘led his troops against the Saxons, who were still making trouble in various parts of the country, and after various vicissitudes he defeated them on a hill outside Bath, wielding a wonderful sword called Caliburn’1 (Ashe, ‘Quest’).
While the chivalric ideal has continued to appear in British literature, Anglo-Saxon heroism with its bond between lord and thane has largely dropped away. The writings of J.R.R. Tolkien provide the striking exception to this.
Jehanne bends her legs and arms, holding them close to her chest like a small child, trying hopelessly to find warmth on the cold, damp floor of her prison cell. Sitting only feet away from her body, outside the bars of her tiny cage, two guards argue over whose task it is to watch over her throughout the night. Their loud shouts echo against the tower’s stone walls and follow the stairs to the wet, deserted ground. She extends her arms around her head in an effort to drown out their foul noise from her head and hopefully alleviate her nose from the rank odor of putrefied air.
Once I got past all the unnecessary narrative, this book read like a script from a ‘Carry On’ movie: a titillating tale of lusty desires and ambition set against a religious backdrop, and heavily cloaked in the guarded innuendo of the time.
Inspired by Njáls saga and Laxdæla saga, the novel Fire in the Ice by American novelist Dorothy James Roberts is one of numerous modern rewritings of classical and medieval literature.
Best-selling author Sharon Kay Penman has published her twelfth novel, Lionheart, which focuses on King Richard I and his crusade to the Holy Land in the late-twelfth century. We had the pleasure of interviewing Sharon Kay Penman about this novel and how she writes historical fiction: This book is a kind of sequel to your […]
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