From Medievalism to Early-Modernism

<p><em>From Medievalism to Early-Modernism: Adapting the English Past </em>is a collection of essays that both analyses the historical and cultural medieval and early modern past and engages with the medievalism and early-modernism—a new term introduced in this collection—present in contemporary popular culture. By focusing on often overlooked uses of the past in contemporary culture—such as the allusions to John Webster’s <i>The Duchess of Malfi </i>(1623) in J.K. Rowling’s <i>Harry Potter </i>books and the impact of intertextual references and internet fandom on the BBC’s <i>The Hollow Crown: The Wars of the Roses</i>—the contributors illustrate how cinematic televisual artistic and literary depictions of the historical and cultural past not only re-purpose the past in varying ways but also build on a history of adaptations that audiences have come to know and expect. <i>From Medievalism to Early-Modernism: Adapting the English Past </i>analyses the way that the medieval and early modern periods are used in modern adaptations and how these adaptations both reflect contemporary concerns and engage with a history of intertextuality and intervisuality.</p><p></p>