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In the Middle Ages it was believed that only a virgin could charm a unicorn out of hiding; but far from being a quaint, anachronistic concept, virginity remains a central value in Western culture. Typing "virgin" into Google results in more than one million hits and includes everything from the Anti-Nicene Fathers to advertisements for free teen virgins, displaying a range of current cultural preoccupations with virginity. This lively, wide-ranging examination of a phenomenon that has touched many aspects of our culture names different archetypes and facets of the concept of virginity. Examples include the Medical Virginexploring what exactly virginity is and how to reliably identify one; the Religious Virgin from the Madonna to the American Christian Right's insistence on sexual abstinence before marriage; the Popular Virgin of Gothic fiction and modern day horror films; the Political Virginvirginity's intimate connection with money and power; and the Monstrous Virgin, as embodiment of what is ultimately unknowable and of violence, excess, and death.

Virginité --- Femmes --- Conditions sociales --- Virginité --- Femmes --- Conditions sociales

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This title explores how sanctity and questions of literariness are intertwined across a range of medieval genres.

English literature --- Saints in literature. --- Religion in literature. --- Religion in drama --- Religion in poetry --- History and criticism. --- History and criticism --- British Isles. --- Sanctity. --- literariness. --- medieval literature. --- poetics.

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Virginity --- Christian ethics --- Women --- Virginité --- Morale chrétienne --- Femmes --- Religious aspects --- Christianity. --- History --- Religious aspects --- Christianity --- Aspect religieux --- Christianisme --- Histoire --- Aspect religieux --- Christianisme

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Sanctity as literature in late medieval Britain explores how sanctity and questions of literariness are intertwined across a range of medieval genres. “Sanctity” as a theme and concept figures as a prominent indicator of the developments in the period, in which authors began to challenge the predominant medieval dichotomy of either relying on the authority of previous authors when writing, or on experience. These developments are marked also by a rethinking of the intended and perceived effects of writings. Instead of looking for clues in religious practices in order to explain these changes, the literary practices themselves need to be scrutinised in detail, which provide evidence for a reinterpretation of both the writers’ and their topics’ traditional roles and purposes. The essays in the collection are based on a representative choice of texts from the fourteenth to the early sixteenth centuries, covering penitential literature, hagiographical compilations and individual legends as well as romance, debates, and mystical literature from medieval and early modern England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. For researchers and advanced students of medieval literature and culture, the collection offers new insights into one of the central concepts of the late medieval period by considering sanctity first and foremost from the perspective of its literariness and literary potential.