Abstract

Why do the Middle Ages occupy both a realm of magic and fantasy and a coarse, barbaric past in our imaginations? The Middle Ages are simultaneously virtuous and squalid, religious and vulgar, chivalrous and gruesome. These opposing perceptions create a dichotomy between a grotesque “medieval” characterized by vulgarity, suffering, and violence, and a romantic “medieval” characterized by piety, luxury, and passion. Such stereotypes are part of a broader, collective cultural memory, a realm in which communities make sense of their present by constructing narratives about the past. This independent study explores the various modes and tools by which art museums and literature construct and represent the Middle Ages as a cultural memory and how these constructions of the past reinforce narratives about modern cultural concepts and expectations. My textual analysis of two literary case studies reveals a shared use of the grotesque to criticize contemporary social and political issues by complicating temporal boundaries between the medieval and the modern. Using visual analysis and ethnographic interviews, I find that my museum case study constructs a monolithically European, Christian, patriarchal, and heteronormative Middle Ages, but also challenges this hegemonic depiction with a special exhibition that takes a more multicultural and holistic approach to representing the medieval.

Advisor

Derderian, Elizabeth

Second Advisor

Eager, Claire

Department

English; Sociology and Anthropology

Disciplines

Anthropology | Museum Studies | Social and Cultural Anthropology

Keywords

museum, museums, Middle Ages, medieval, literature, The Name of the Rose, The Corner That Held Them, Umberto Eco, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Cleveland Museum of Art, cultural memory

Publication Date

2025

Degree Granted

Bachelor of Arts

Document Type

Senior Independent Study Thesis

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© Copyright 2025 Emily Voneman