Midsummer : a cultural sub-text from Chretien de Troyes to Jean Michel / by Sandra Billington.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Billington, Sandra, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

French literature--To 1500--History and criticism.

French literature.

Festivals in literature.

Summer festivals--Europe.

Summer festivals.

Summer solstice--Europe.

Summer solstice.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 249 pages) : illustrations

Place of Publication:

Turnhout, Belgium : Brepols, [2000]

Summary:

Midsummer was not only a season for purification, it was primarily viewed as a time of change. The moment of the sun's power crisis was used as an analogy for mankind's mid-life crisis and for reversals, or wished-for reversals, in social power-structures. A number of factors combined to make truth-telling, even slander on those in authority, licensed at this season. This volume reveals for the first time the significance of the season for popular tradition, for literature, for theatre, and for civic politics in France and the Low Countries. And the new evidence, on which it is based, shows that subversion was inherent at the feast of St John's Nativity three centuries before it became associated with Carnival. Sandra Billington is a Reader at the Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies at the University of Glasgow.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [231]-243) and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

2-503-56161-6