IMC 2016: Sessions

Session 1624: Food, Feasting, and the Flesh: Between Conflict and Communion

Thursday 7 July 2016, 11.15-12.45

Sponsor:	Taiwan Association of Classical, Medieval & Renaissance Studies
Organiser:	Sophia Ya-shih Liu, Department of Foreign Languages & Literatures, National Taiwan University
Moderator/Chair:	Catherine J. Batt, Institute for Medieval Studies, University of Leeds
Paper 1624-a	The Implication of beor (beer) in Beowulf (Language: English) Dong-Ill Lee, Department of English, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Seoul Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Language and Literature - Old English
Paper 1624-b	Arthur's Tables: The Feasts in Layamon's Brut (Language: English) Sophia Ya-shih Liu, Department of Foreign Languages & Literatures, National Taiwan University Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Language and Literature - Middle English
Paper 1624-c	Incarnation, Embodiment, and Communion: Christ's Body as Antidote to Alienation in the Commedia (Language: English) Brian Reynolds, Department of Italian, Fu Jen Catholic University, Taiwan Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Language and Literature - Italian
Abstract	This session discusses how medieval writers have explored the paradoxical notions of conflict and communion, engendered in the consumption of food in feasts within social and religious contexts from Beowulf, Layamon's King Arthur, to Dante's Commedia. While the first paper considers the dispute between Unferth and Beowulf in the Danes' feast to deals with the implication of beor (beer), the second paper argues that Layamon invented three feasts to narrate the story of the Round Table in order to test the boundary between history and marvel. When Arthur's breast was illustrated as a literary feast in the metaphor of Eucharist in the second paper, the third paper argues that Christ's body was used as antidote to alienation in the Commedia.