Helen Waddell reassessed : new readings / Jennifer FitzGerald (ed.).

Format:

Book

Contributor:

FitzGerald, Jennifer, 1948- editor.

Constance L. Rosenthal Book Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Waddell, Helen, 1889-1965.

Waddell, Helen.

Authors, English--20th century--Biography.

Authors, English.

Medievalists--Great Britain--Biography.

Medievalists.

Great Britain.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

ix, 342 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Peter Lang, [2014]

Summary:

The Irish writer and critic Helen Waddell burst onto the publishing scene of the 1920s and 1930s as a phenomenon, a scholar whose books became instant bestsellers. Cross-fertilizing academic research with a vivid imagination, her literary history The Wandering Scholars explores the secular joys of the scholares vagantes, an emotional undercurrent traceable throughout the ascetic centuries. Waddel's translations of Mediaeval Latin Lyrics read as poems in their own right; her novel, Peter Abelard, grounds the tragedy of the famous lovers Heloise and Abelard in the woof and warp of medieval humanism. At the time, the academy acknowledged her learning but deemed her methods insufficiently objective. Modern scholarship has finally caught up with Waddell, and the essays in this volume reassess her achievement from the perspectives of medieval, English, cultural and Irish studies. They investigate this romantic's modernist insights and demonstrate how her Irish roots were re-inscribed in her cross-cultural, transnational humanism. They examine her scepticism regarding conventional historiography and her cutting-edge engagement with medieval theology. They explore the range of her writings, from adaptations of ancient Chinese lyrics through translations from medieval Latin, interacting allusively with cultural ideologies and literary texts. These new readings show how Waddell's accessible, imaginative, scholarly works continually challenge academic and literary orthodoxies. Book jacket.

Contents:

Medieval contexts. Helen Waddell and Heloise: the continuity of a learned tradition / Constant J. Mews

Scholar of the dark: Helen Waddell and the Middle Ages / Charles Lock

Wandering scholars and saintly cults: the liturgical legacy / Ann Buckley

Women, love and mime: the evolution of The wandering scholars / Jennifer FitzGerald

Critical readings. The ghost of a voice: Waddell's Peter Abelard between Benjamin and Collingwood / Stephen Kelly

Reviving Helen Waddell's lost decade: Ireland and the transnational imaginary / Amanda Tucker

Helen Waddell: Presbyterian medievalist / Norman Vance

Reading (into) The wandering scholars: the (inter)textual text / Jennifer FitzGerald

Parallels and influences. Women scholars and early twentieth-century medievalism: Helen Waddell and Hope Emily Allen / Louise Watson

Writing beyond Rome and Geneva / Norman Vance

Wandering poets and the spirit of romance in Helen Waddell and Ezra Pound / Helen Carr

Chinese originals: Helen Waddell and Arthur Waley / David Burleigh

Helen Waddell and the Victorian family / Nini Rogers

Appendix. Helen Waddell: a bibliography / Jennifer FitzGerald.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

"Essays in this volume reassess [Waddell's] achievement from the perspectives of medieval, English, cultural and Irish studies."--Provided by publisher.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Constance L. Rosenthal Book Fund.

ISBN:

3034309783

OCLC:

865496389

Publisher Number:

99962033600