Description: The essays in this collection explore the concept of 'transubstantiation', its adaptations and transformations in English and European culture, from the Elizabethans to the twentieth century. Favouring an interartistic and comparative perspective, a wide range of critical approaches, from the philosophical to the semiological, from cultural materialism to gender and queer studies, are brought to bear on authors ranging from Descartes, Shakespeare, and Joyce to Macpherson, Madox Ford, and Winterson. Contributors include Tomaso Cavallo, Martin Stannard, Marina Spunta, Mario Curreli, and Carla Dente. The volume will be of interest to those concerned with the cultural history of Christianity and with the remarkable critical and theoretical insights generated by contemporary approaches to this traditional theme.
Review Quotes: '... offers a fascinating discussion of some of the Greek influences on the idea including the distinction between transubstantiation and metamorphosis and the role of the riddle in Greek tragedy... The essays on the early modern period in this volume are all of a high quality of scholarship and argument.' Sixteenth Century Journal