We are delighted to announce the winners of the essay competitions for Volume 3 of Cerae.
Lisa Tagliaferri won the prize for Best Themed Essay, with the theme of the issue being ‘Words, Signs, and Feelings’. Tagliaferri’s article, ”A Gentlewoman of the Courte’: Introducing and Translating the Court Lady’, explores the pro-feminist agenda, or lack of such, of Baldassarre Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier and its subsequent English translation by Thomas Hoby. Tagliaferri argues that the book was presented as an appeasement to ladies within the court, but is actually a behavioural manual designed to retain masculine authority.
Matthew Firth won the prize for Best Essay Related to the History of Emotions, with his article Allegories of Sight: Blinding and Power in Late Anglo-Saxon England. Firth’s essay details the use of blinding as a punitive punishment in Anglo-Saxon England, from an initial reluctance to employ such a debilitating disability to a recognition of its effectiveness in curtailing the power of one’s enemies. Anglo-Saxon culture believed that sight was inherent to power, argues Firth, making the decision to blind a person particularly complex.
Both essays, and the rest of volume 3, are available on Cerae‘s website. The deadline for themed submissions for volume 5 is 30th November, but non-themed essays are welcomed throughout the year. The theme for volume 5 is Representations and Recollections of Empire.
Congratulations to the winners for their good work and contributions to Cerae!