Medieval and Early Modern Jewish Romance by Caroline Gruenbaum, Annegret Oehme (Editors)

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Jewish Engagements

This study features essays from leading scholars highlighting the important Jewish contributions to the popular medieval genre of romance. Writing against strict notions of genre boundaries and canonization, this volume provides a new understanding of medieval and early modern romance through a working definition consisting of variable elements, including language, literary devices, plot, and characters. The contributions in this volume establish that many texts written in the medieval and early modern Jewish communities across Europe and beyond can be classified as “romance.” Each of the nine chapters as well as the afterword by Eli Yassif discusses romance as it relates to the medieval and early modern Jewish world, as well as the greater non-Jewish context. This volume places Jewish texts into the scholarly conversation as sources for forming a new understanding of the genre of romance across religious and cultural boundaries.

Year first published: 2023