Saracens and Franks in 12th - 15th Century European and Near ... - 9781472472359

Taylor & Francis

Saracens and Franks in 12th - 15th Century European and Near Eastern Literature investigates the ways in which medieval Western European Christian and Eastern Mediterranean Muslim writers portrayed their counterparts in works of history, ethnography and geography, and travel literature, as well as in works of fiction. It interrogates the premises underlying the concept of the Other, challenging formulations of binary opposition such as the West versus Islam/Muslims. > Saracens and Franks in 12th - 15th Century European and Near Eastern Literature examines the tension between two competing discourses in the medieval Muslim Mediterranean and medieval Christian Europe: one rooted in the desire to understand the world and one's place in it, and another promoting an ethnocentric narrative. To this end, it examines the construction of an image of the Other for Muslims in the Eastern Mediterranean and for Christians in Western Europe in works of literature, particularly in the works prod.