A History of Crossroads in Early Modern Culture

Tracks the history of concepts and practices associated with the physical crossroads in the early modern periodBreaks new ground in the area of literary geography and enhances the historical understanding of the place of the crossroads in literary and cultural discourseUnifies various discourses of early modern culture and subjectivity in terms of the experience and understanding of the crossroadsLocates issues around the ideology and experience of the road in one specific culturally significant placeFocusing on the crossroads in the early modern period, this book deals with the literature and history of the physical crossroads: it's magical and religious encounters, rituals of transformation, binding of undesirable spirits, siting of gallows, associations with music, and links to ancient cosmology. Physical crossroads have been culturally vital sites where forces human, demonic and divine were felt to converge. Crossroads have seemed to render the boundaries between these spheres negotiable, subject to certain artifice and timing. They gave access to gods and facilitated deals with devils, they were potent sites for rituals intended to influence lovers or harm enemies and provided both a dramatic stage for communal activities and a burial ground for the unwanted dead cast out in ceremonies of the night.