Reviews for Between Medieval Men: Male Friendship and Desire in Early Medieval English Literature

The average rating for Between Medieval Men: Male Friendship and Desire in Early Medieval English Literature based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2021-01-22 00:00:00 Shawn Rust I have a very odd history with this book! I think I have dipped into it for cites before, but only now read the intro properly. And more importantly, until recently I had it confused with... I don't know what book. But one published before this one. I remember being warned about *someone* over-determining homosexuality into Old English and Norse heroic masculinites, circa 2007/8 (the book may have been older than that), and when i returned to my MPhil as a now queer scholar I just assumed this must have been the book in question (which had come out in 2009). It does not do that! Nor does Frantzen, the only other logical contender - in fact if anything Frantzen UNDER-determines sexual possibilities in favour of weird noble homoerotic but not sexual bonding, something that makes much more sense now he's taken a turn toward the alt-right. Read David Clark, not Frantzen, if you are looking for early medieval homosociality. ANYWAY. One day I will actually read all of this book cover-to-cover but for now I have read the intro and Ch1, and found them Good, Actually.

Review # 2 was written on 2016-12-22 00:00:00 John Platt Clarke uses the work of Sedgwick to map out male homosocial/homosexual bonds in the Middle Ages. He progresses his research one step farther than Sedgwick by mapping the history of how sodomy was defined by the Church through the Middle Ages. This makes a profound difference and pairs very well with Sedgwick's work.