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IMC 2011: Sessions

Session 115: Poverty and Wealth in Vernacular Literature

Monday 11 July 2011, 11.15-12.45

Moderator/Chair:Christopher Fletcher, Laboratoire de Médiévistique Occidentale de Paris (LAMOP - UMR 8589), Université Paris I - Panthéon-Sorbonne
Paper 115-aThe Erotics of Inequality: Courtly Love and Economic Disparity in the High Middle Ages
(Language: English)
Fidel Fajardo-Acosta, Department of English, Creighton University
Index terms: Economics - General, Language and Literature - French or Occitan, Sexuality, Social History
Paper 115-bSalvation and Wealth: Political Economy in the Middle High German Rolandslied
(Language: English)
Kathrin Gollwitzer-Oh, Institut für Deutsche Philologie, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
Index terms: Crusades, Language and Literature - German, Religious Life
Abstract

Paper -a:
The increased availability of luxury commodities in European courtly settings during the High Middle Ages significantly widened the gaps between rich and poor and encouraged deep divisions in medieval society. While berating the rustic and unrefined, courtly literature invested the 'domna' - the noble lady decked in silks and jewels and enjoying finely spiced foods, perfumes, and other exotic goods - with an aura of intense eroticism and vast social and spiritual elevation. Inseparable from matters of wealth and status, the 'fin amor' of the troubadours prefigured western Romantic passions and the libidinal dynamics of wealth-seeking and upward mobility of the modern commercial world.

Paper -b:
In comparison to the Old French Chanson de Roland, Konrad's composition is considered to be primarily a literary portrayal of the crusader propaganda. Although the economics of salvation overlay both narration and discourse, other cultral concepts of meaning and coherence, especially distinctive to the heroic epos, are still narratively productive. This paper focuses on the economics of trade, people, and, first of all, riches used within the narration and by the protagonists. By contrasting the economics of salvation with the economics of wealth the different semantics that govern the text are to be revealed.