From Medievalism to Early-Modernism

From Medievalism to Early-Modernism: Adapting the English Past is a collection of essays that both analyses the historical and cultural medieval and early modern past, and engages with the medievalism and early-modernisma new term introduced in this collectionpresent in contemporary popular culture. By focusing on often overlooked uses of the past in contemporary culturesuch as the allusions to John Websters The Duchess of Malfi (1623) in J.K. Rowlings Harry Potter books, and the impact of intertextual references and internet fandom on the BBCs The Hollow Crown: The Wars of the Rosesthe 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. From Medievalism to Early-Modernism: Adapting the English Past 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.