Writing Plague

Language and Violence from the Black Death to COVID-19

By:

Alfred Thomas

Format:

Paperback / softback

Series:

The New Middle Ages

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Description

Writing Plague: Language and Violence from the Black Death to COVID-19 brings a holistic and comparative perspective to “plague writing” from the later Middle Ages to the twenty-first century. It argues that while the human “hardware” has changed enormously between the medieval past and the present (urbanization, technology, mass warfare, and advances in medical science), the human “software” (emotional and psychological reactions to the shock of pandemic) has remained remarkably similar across time. Through close readings of works by medieval writers like Guillaume de Machaut, Giovanni Boccaccio, and Geoffrey Chaucer in the fourteenth century, select plays by Shakespeare, and modern “plague” fiction and film, Alfred Thomas convincingly demonstrates psychological continuities between the Black Death and COVID-19. In showing how in times of plague human beings repress their fears and fantasies and displace them onto the threatening “other,” Thomas highlights the danger of scapegoating vulnerable minority groups such as Asian Americans and Jews in today’s America. This wide-ranging study will thus be of interest not only to medievalists but also to students of modernity as well as the general reader.

Author Biography:

Alfred Thomas is Professor of English at the University of Illinois at Chicago, USA. He has published ten books on various aspects of European and English literature from the later Middle Ages to Shakespeare.

Release date NZ

April 23rd, 2023

Author

Alfred Thomas

Series

The New Middle Ages

Pages

265

Edition

1st ed. 2022

Audience

Professional & Vocational

Illustrations

30 Illustrations, color; 2 Illustrations, black and white; XXIV, 265 p. 32 illus., 30 illus. in color.

ISBN-13

9783030948528

Product ID

36620200

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