Bücher von Jan M. Ziolkowski

Has nostalgia existed forever or only since a given date? The word is first attested in 1688, but the experience of homesickness for a specific place, time, or both may be universal among human beings. Today nostalgia receives extensive scrutiny, in mass media as well as in ­scholarship. Longing for the Middle Ages has been regarded as sometimes dangerous for political reasons. Suspicion has grown about nostalgia for and in the medieval period: consider the furor over the term Anglo-Saxon. The Medieval Latin Poem of Walthare, better known as the Waltharius, cries out for a share of attention.This essay situates the Poem of Walthare within nostalgia studies. The examination reviews the many different types of nostalgia that have been identified lately. Alongside private and collective, it touches on the role of consumerism and the politicization of ­nostalgia, especially by (neo-) Nazis, white supremacists, and their opponents. At the same time, the study delves into the earlier medical view of nostalgia: this syndrome was diagnosed among Swiss ­mercenaries in the late seventeenth century.The recent debates have interesting consequences for the short ­medieval epic, which is rooted in the events of a distant Germanic past, which produced legends of exiles who yearned for their homes and peoples. Yet the Latin of the Middle Ages does not fit naturally within modern national languages and literatures. Since the late eighteenth century, the poem has been coordinated with early medieval German culture. Jacob Grimm, who played a foundational role in this research, paid heed to the longing for a German homeland that he felt. Joseph Victor von Scheffel had his own nostalgia for long-ago Saint Gall.

Dante put Muhammad in one of the lowest circles of Hell. At the same time, the medieval Christian poet placed several Islamic philosophers much more honorably in Limbo. Furthermore, it has long been suggested that for much of the basic framework of the Divine Comedy Dante was indebted to apocryphal traditions about a "e;night journey"e; taken by Muhammad.Dante scholars have increasingly returned to the question of Islam to explore the often surprising encounters among religious traditions that the Middle Ages afforded. This collection of essays works through what was known of the Qur'an and of Islamic philosophy and science in Dante's day and explores the bases for Dante's images of Muhammad and Ali. It further compels us to look at key instances of engagement among Muslims, Jews, and Christians.