Seeing the (Im)Material: Visual Detail, Abstraction, and Artifice in Medieval Texts
The literature produced by the communities of early Northern Europe, where the elements of craft and material culture informed the descriptive matter of both poetry and prose, has left a legacy which demands critical analysis of the ways in which the trappings of the real and the imaginary were represented. What were the relationships between figurative language, mimetic representation, the production of craft, and perceptions shaped by the visual arts? Did the allegories, symbols, emblems, fancies, and verisimilitude of literature in Old and Middle English, Old Norse/Icelandic, Early Welsh, or Early Irish provide opportunities to discuss the interface of descriptive writing with other modes of representation? Potential papers are asked to cons