Emotion and the Medieval Self

This introduction situates the discussion of emotion and selfhood in medieval literature in a critical and cultural context, addressing its relevance for postmedieval readers and scholars. It addresses concepts such as performativity, selfhood and emotionality and their importance for the understanding of medieval literature. It furthermore elaborates on the rationale of the special issue and its scope, which extends across Scandinavia, Germany, Britain, Northern France, Flanders and the Netherlands. Finally, it proposes that the literary representation of selfhood is intimately interlinked with emotionality and the staging of literary emotions and introduces a broad range of essays to test this hypothesis across multiple cultural realms, generic forms and literary traditions.