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Scholar, Writer, Mother, Dreamer. Editor of Luminarium, an online library for English Literature of the Middle Ages and Renaissance.

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

A Plague on Both Your Houses!

I've spent the whole day refreshing myself on the Black Death. I first became fascinated by it after reading Connie Willis' wonderful sci-fi novel Doomsday Book, in which an Oxford history student is sent to the Middle Ages to study everyday living, but gets accidentally sent to December 1348, when the Black Plague first arrives in Oxfordshire. The latest book I read on the plague was J. Kelly's The Great Mortality. I'm working on an article for the Luminarium Encyclopedia on the plague, specifically as it relates to the English Middle Ages and Renaissance. My head is swimming with thoughts of fleas and buboes, blackening skin, whole villages wiped out in a matter of days... gory stuff. I wonder what my dreams will be like tonight. Perhaps tomorrow I should work on a page of fairy tales....
 

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4 Comments:

Blogger Jarod said...

Awesome!
A fascinating subject, really. Post more as you continue your research.

I would like to see a truly accurate movie of someone going back in time. They wouldn't understand alot of the middle or old english. They would probably get sick from the food. The air would smell different. The actors should have bad teeth. They wouldn't be able to just go up and speak to a noble person casually. etc, etc.

May 09, 2007 12:14 PM  
Blogger Anniina said...

You ought to read the Doomsday Book - my dream is to make it into a movie some day. Willis did a great job of capturing all of that.

May 09, 2007 12:42 PM  
Blogger Stefanie said...

That was an awesomely unexpected opening sentence. :-)

May 10, 2007 3:03 PM  
Blogger Anniina said...

Heheheh :)

May 10, 2007 9:43 PM  

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