Erotic Discourse and Early English Religious Writing (The New Middle Ages)

the long version

"Erotic Discourse discusses the role of sexuality in medieval devotional practice, looking in particular at religious writings circulating in England in the tenth to thirteenth centuries. During this period of changing opportunities for religious expression, erotic components of Christian worship were reconsidered and altered to meet the needs of a variety of audiences: monastic, anchoritic, mendicant, and lay. Farina's book takes an audience-specific approach, moving beyond looking at well-known representations of sexual behavior to consider reading itself as an eroticized performance occupying differing cultural spaces. In doing so, it expands our ideas about sexuality and its place in religious history."--Jacket.