For the first time, a group of distinguished authors come together to provide an authoritative exploration of the cultural history of tragedy in the Middle Ages. Reports of the so-called death of medieval tragedy, they argue, have been greatly exaggerated; and, for the Middle Ages, the stakes couldn't be higher. Eight essays offer a blueprint for future study as they take up the extensive but much-neglected medieval engagement with tragic genres, modes, and performances from the vantage points of gender, politics, theology, history, social theory, anthropology, philosophy, economics, and media studies. The result? A recuperated medieval tragedy that is as much a branch of literature as it is of theology, politics, law, or ethics and which, at long last, rejoins the millennium-long conversation about one of the world's most enduring art forms.Each chapter takes a different theme as its focus: forms and media; sites of performance and circulation; communities of production and consumption; philosophy and social theory; religion, ritual and myth; politics of city and nation; society and family, and gender and sexuality.

Organized thematically to provide a variety of perspectives on the genre of tragedy and how it has been shaped by social and cultural conditions

List of IllustrationsNotes on ContributorsSeries PrefaceGeneral Editor's AcknowledgementsIntroduction: Miscarriages of Justice, Jody Enders (University of California, USA)1. Forms and Media, Carol Symes (University of Illinois, USA)2. Sites of Performance and Circulation, Christopher Swift (City University of New York, USA)3. Communities of Production and Consumption, John T. Sebastian (Loyola Marymount University, USA)4. Philosophy and Social Theory, Antonio Donato (City University of New York, USA) and Erith Jaffe-Berg (University of California, USA)5. Religion, Ritual, and Myth, John Parker (University of Virginia, USA)6. Politics of City and Nation, Hannah Skoda (University of Oxford, UK)7. Society and Family, Theresa Coletti (University of Maryland College Park, USA)8. Gender and Sexuality, Karen Sullivan (Bard College, USA)NotesBibliographyIndex