Kiss My Relics: Hermaphroditic Fictions of the Middle Ages

Conservative thinkers of the early Middle Ages conceived of sensual gratification as a demonic snare contrived to debase the higher faculties of humanity, and they identified pagan writing as one of the primary conduits of decadence. Two aspects of the pagan legacy were treated with particular distrust: fiction, conceived as a devious contrivance that falsified God's order; and rhetorical opulence, viewed as a vain extravagance. Writing that offered these dangerous allurements came to be kn...