Healers and redeemers

Literature, Music, Film, and other media include myths of redemption and healing which have been deeply rooted in Christian stories since late Antiquity. The topic of the healer and redeemer is explored in the context of the ever growing interest in medievalism in recent years. This volume offers a panorama of late and post modern artefacts picking up on ancient and/or medieval concepts of redemption. The choice of case studies is broad with regard to language and genre as well as with respect to the artistic forms and styles that bring together German, Romanesque, English, and Classical philologies. This large variety is intentional. The Middle Ages open a powerful symbolical field, communicating and shaping contemporaneity in the interaction between the academic study of the Middle Ages and literary and artistic Medievalism. The various traditions of the healer and redeemer have hardly been studied in this context as an independent field of research. There is a long tradition of associating figures of healers and redeemers with the quest for historical alternatives or the legitimation of power. Representations and interpretations of healers and redeemers bear witness to the various transformations of these myths and literary motifs in theatre, in opera, in literary traditions, and in modern ‘reincarnations,’ such as fantasy and science fiction literature and film.