David Benson’s Imagined Romes takes us into the medieval city and trains us to understand how late medieval English readers of and visitors to the eternal city imagined its republican and imperial past. The book conveniently maps out a set of instances in which some medieval writers represented Rome or responded to various definitions of Romanness.” -Sylvia Federico, Speculum “The relation of medieval cultures to Rome is creatively conflicted: early Christianity defines itself against everything that ‘Rome’ stands for, while the Papacy models itself as a new empire. “As with book about medieval Troy stories, Imagined Romes may well become a standard undergraduate source. Benson discusses how these poets conceive of ancient Rome and its citizens-especially the women of Rome-as well as why this matters to their works.Īn insightful and innovative study, Imagined Romes addresses a crucial lacuna in the scholarship of Rome in the medieval imaginary and provides fresh perspectives on the work of four of the most prominent Middle English poets. David Benson analyzes the variety of ways that Rome and its citizens, both pre-Christian and Christian, are presented in a range of Middle English poems, from lesser-known, anonymous works to the poetry of Gower, Chaucer, Langland, and Lydgate. Once the capital of a great pagan empire whose ruined monuments still inspired awe in the Middle Ages, Rome, the seat of the pope, became a site of Christian pilgrimage owing to the fame of its early martyrs, whose relics sanctified the city and whose help was sought by pilgrims to their shrines. This volume explores the conflicting representations of ancient Rome-one of the most important European cities in the medieval imagination-in late Middle English poetry.
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