1st Edition

Toleration and Tolerance in Medieval European Literature

Edited By Albrecht Classen Copyright 2018
    338 Pages
    by Routledge

    338 Pages
    by Routledge

    Toleration and Tolerance in Medieval European Literature aims to examine and unearth the critical investigations of toleration and tolerance presented in literary texts of the Middle Ages. In contrast to previous approaches, this volume identifies new methods of interpreting conventional classifications of toleration and tolerance through the emergence of multi-level voices in literary, religious, and philosophical discourses of authorities in medieval literature. Accordingly, this volume identifies two separate definitions of toleration and tolerance, the former as a representative of a majority group accepts a member of the minority group but still holds firmly to the believe that s/he is right and the other entirely wrong, and tolerance meaning that all faiths, convictions, and ideologies are treated equally, and the majority speaker is ready to accept that potentially his/her position is wrong. Applying these distinct differences in the critical investigation of interaction and representation in context, this book offers new insight into the tolerant attitudes portrayed in medieval literature of which regularly appealed, influenced and shaped popular opinions of the period.

    Table of Contents: History of Toleration and Tolerance:





     



    I: Toleration and Tolerance: An Introduction



    Historical, Religious, and Literary Reflections





    II: History and Theory of Toleration and Tolerance:



    Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Early Modern Ages:



    Early Voices, Quiet and yet of Great Strength





    III: Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Encounters with the Others



    Emergence of Toleration and Tolerance in



    the Early Thirteenth Century?





    IV: A Brief Moment of Truce and Welcome:



    Friendship Between the Muslim and the Christian



    in Rudolf von Ems’s Der guote Gêrhart





    V: Reaching out to the Other Side in Fourteenth-Century



    Italian Literature: Literary Efforts to Establish Friendship



    and Tolerant Relationships in Boccaccio’s Decameron





    VI: The Foreign World and the Foreign Religion in Medieval Literature



    Experiments in and Strategies with Toleration



    A Pan-European Perspective on the ‘Good Heathen’





    VII: Philosophical and Religious Outreaches to the Other Faiths



    from the High to the Late Middle Ages: Peter Abelard,



    Ramon Llull, and Nicholas of Cusa,







    VIII: Tolerance in the Age of the Protestant Reformation



    The Quest for Spiritual Truth Beyond the Church



    Sebastian Franck and Valentin Weigel





    IX: Epilogue





    Bibliography





    Index

    Biography

    Albrecht Classen is University Distinguished Professor of German Studies at the University of Arizona where he teaches and research medieval and early modern German and European literature and culture. In his by now ninety scholarly books he has examined many different aspects, most recently water (2017), the forest (2016), death (2016), multilingualism (2016), love, marriage, and sexuality (in several books over the last two decades), friendship, urban and rural space, crime and punishment, women’s voices, etc. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Virginia in 1986. He has received major grants and awards for teaching, research, and service.