Dwellers Amid the Clouds: the Literature of the Court

A survey of three court traditions-Heian Japan, medieval Iceland, and early modern England-in which the relationship between the literary genres and the specific social context from which they emerge is highlighted in the form of particular literary conventions. Topics include the question of patronage, the function of particular literature as shibboleth, the idea of spectacle and play, the politics of literature, and the trope of irony as courtly emblem.