Love and Anti-Judaism in Medieval English Romance

Hope Doherty-Harrison is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Edinburgh

An immensely learned and thought-provoking exploration of the connections between love and religion in medieval romance, Doherty-Harrison’s approach takes the reader beyond conventional readings and opens up a rich world of theological complexity and ambivalence. - Jacqueline Tasioulas, Professor of Medieval English & Scots, Clare College, University of CambridgeThis exhilarating study of Middle English romance investigates the genre’s complex attachments to Christian typology, and specifically to commentary on the Song of Songs and Abraham’s near-sacrifice of Isaac. In a series of nuanced and sophisticated readings, Doherty-Harrison proves medieval romances to be 'vivid narratives of typological confusion,' which use 'medieval Christianity’s most powerful normative structure…typological anti-Judaism' to explore ambivalent individual relations of love, violence, sacrifice, and doubt. This bracing, highly original book will surely transform the way we understand the relationship between Christian theology and courtly romance. - Emily Steiner, Rose Family Endowed Term Professor of English, University of Pennsylvania

• Introduction: loving typology in medieval Christianity1 Imagining Synagoga and Ecclesia with the Song of Songs2 Types of Synagoga and the damaged garden in Sir Gowther3 Promises of love and violence in Sir Orfeo4 An Abrahamic lover?: typology and responsibility in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight5 Abrahamic wives and the Judgement of Solomon in Sir AmadaceConclusion: typology as violence and desire