Recent Books in the Field of Medieval Literature

The main objective of this article is to analyze the relationship between the novísimos poets—Pedro Gimferrer, Luis Antonio de Villena, Leopoldo María Panero, and Guillermo Carnero, among others—and the avant-garde movements in Spain. If during the forties the garcilasismo opposed the avant-garde, in the seventies, with the novísimos, the -ismos returned to be considered not as a radical change but as one more stage in the evolution of Spanish poetry. The -ismos are now considered not as a subversive departure from the past, but as part of Spanish artistic heritage and tradition, thus reconciling tradition and modernity or even converting the vanguard into literary tradition. The -ismos are described not as an absolute novelty but simply as a process of innovation in the same way, with their own poetic precedents, as the garcilasistas and the neoromantics of the past.     

Motifs in The Arabian Nights and in Ancient and Medieval European Literature: A Comparison

This paper is a contribution to the ongoing debate about the origins of parallel motifs in The Arabian Nights and in ancient and medieval popular and learned literature about exotic lands of the East. This preliminary survey focuses on seven related motifs: the magnetic mountain, the congealed sea, flying griffins, automata and genies, the mysterious walled city, the living island, and the underground river. This paper is intended as a contribution toward a motif-Index of The Arabian Nights in order to facilitate further comparative study of the motifs involved.     

Medieval Pottery

Excavation of an area of over 750 sq. m during 1992–94 and 1999 revealed a multi-period prehistoric site preserved beneath the Roman fort. Flints attested mesolithic activity. In the early Neolithic a segmented ditch may represent part of a causewayed enclosure. By c. 3000 cal. B.C. this had been superseded (in this area) by pits and shelters associated with flint-knapping. Finds, but not structures, attest a bronze-age presence. Within the period 390–170 cal. B.C. a roundhouse with cultivation plot, part of an unenclosed settlement, occupied the area. This had been burnt and was rich in carbonised plant remains which provided information about the arable economy and spatial variations in the use of the roundhouse interior. In the later Iron Age the area was reclaimed by cultivation associated with an unlocated settlement. The nature of the occupation on the eve of the Roman period is not known.