Besieging the Castle of Ladies: Bernardo Lecture Series, No. 4Center for Medieval & Early Renaissance Studies, Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1995 - Literary Criticism - 39 pages Besieging the Castle of Ladies is the fourth in a series of publications occasioned by the annual Bernardo Lecture at the Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies (CEMERS) at Binghamton University. This series offers public lectures which have been given by distinguished medieval and Renaissance scholars on topics and figures representative of these two important historical, religious, and intellectual periods. In Besieging the Castle of Ladies, Thomas M. Greene traces the mysterious motif of the castle defined by women across several centuries, regions, and cultural expressions. Basing his study on a “disguising” performed in 1501 at the court of Henry VII, he moves backward in time to discuss the early medieval chronicle by Cosmas of Prague, a staged game in twelfth-century Treviso, the Roman de la Rose, and English manuscript illuminations and French ivory caskets of the fourteenth century, along with other texts and materials. But Greene also examines early modern versions of his protean theme: in a Flemish tapestry, in festivities at the court of Henry VIII (including the king as participant), in Spenser’s Faerie Queene, and in a mock-siege centering on the person of Elizabeth I. Each instance of the motif, like the entire series of representations, poses questions about sexual politics and sexual control. |
Common terms and phrases
abduction Accueil aggression allegorical siege Amoret Anne Boleyn appeared arrows Arthur Tudor assailants assault attackers Ben Jonson Besieging the Castle bride Brussels castle defended castle of ladies Castle of Love Catherine of Aragon Chateau d'amour chronicle conflict Cosmas of Prague Court Entertainment court festivity courtly dance daunces Devin Double illumination dressed Early Tudor English envoys epithalamic Faerie Queene female defenders female resistance figure Flemish tapestry Fortresse dangerus fourteenth century genders Guillaume de Lorris hermeneutic Hope and Desire husband images interpretation iuvenes ivory caskets Jean de Meun Jean Molinet Jonson King Henry London Loomis lover Lubosse ludus Maidens male fantasy Malebouche manuscript Marot medieval missiles motif Mount of Love narrative nobilitatibus Oxford pageant car Paris Peterborough Psalter pleasure poem princess prudentiis regum Renaissance ritual Roman sapientiis Schatew Vert Scudamour seid ladies sexual Spenser STANFORD struggle suitor symbolic tress Treviso Venus violence Walter de Milemete William Cornish woman