Language and Culture in Medieval Britain

Language and Culture in Medieval Britain

Author: Jocelyn Wogan-Browne

Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 562

ISBN-13: 1903153476

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The essays in this volume form a new cultural history focused round, but not confined to, the presence and interactions of francophone speakers, writers, readers, texts and documents in England from the 11th to the later 15th century.


The French of Medieval England

The French of Medieval England

Author: Thelma S. Fenster

Publisher: Boydell & Brewer

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 362

ISBN-13: 1843844591

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Recent research has emphasised the importance of insular French in medieval English culture alongside English and Latin; for a period of some four hundred years, French (variously labelled the French of England, Anglo-Norman, Anglo-French, and Insular French) rivalled these two languages. The essays here focus on linguistic adaptation and translation in this new multilingual England, where John Gower wrote in Latin while his contemporary Chaucer could break new ground in English.


Britain in Medieval French Literature

Britain in Medieval French Literature

Author: P. Rickard

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2012-02-16

Total Pages: 295

ISBN-13: 1107670705

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A comprehensive 1956 study of French and Provençal literature of the medieval period in terms of its connections with the British Isles.


Broken Lines

Broken Lines

Author: Raluca L. Radulescu

Publisher: Brepols Publishers

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13:

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The essays in this collection explore the genealogical literature of late-medieval Britain and France in relation to issues of identity, the transmission of power, and cultural, socio-political and economic developments. They give the reader a complex understanding of genealogical literature and its relationships with other genres.


The Legend of Charlemagne in Medieval England

The Legend of Charlemagne in Medieval England

Author: Phillipa Hardman

Publisher: Boydell & Brewer

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 491

ISBN-13: 1843844729

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The first full-length examination of the medieval Charlemagne tradition in the literature and culture of medieval England, from the Chanson de Roland to Caxton. The Matter of France, the legendary history of Charlemagne, had a central but now largely unrecognised place in the multilingual culture of medieval England. From the early claim in the Chanson de Roland that Charlemagne held England as his personal domain, to the later proliferation of Middle English romances of Charlemagne, the materials are woven into the insular political and cultural imagination. However, unlike the wide range of continental French romances, the insular tradition concentrates on stories of a few heroic characters: Roland, Fierabras, Otinel. Why did writers and audiences in England turn again and again to these narratives, rewriting and reinterpreting them for more than two hundred years? This book offers the first full-length, in-depth study of the tradition as manifested in literature and culture. It investigates the currency and impact of the Matter of France with equal attention to English and French-language texts, setting each individual manuscript or early printed text in its contemporary cultural and political context. The narratives are revealed to be extraordinarily adaptable, using the iconic opposition between Carolingian and Saracen heroes to reflect concerns with national politics, religious identity, the future of Christendom, chivalry and ethics, and monarchy and treason. PHILLIPA HARDMAN is Readerin Medieval English Literature (retired) at the University of Reading; MARIANNE AILES is Senior Lecturer in French at the University of Bristol.


The Familiar Enemy

The Familiar Enemy

Author: Ardis Butterfield

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2009-12-10

Total Pages: 480

ISBN-13: 0191610305

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The Familiar Enemy re-examines the linguistic, literary, and cultural identities of England and France within the context of the Hundred Years War. During this war, two profoundly intertwined peoples developed complex strategies for expressing their aggressively intimate relationship. This special connection between the English and the French has endured into the modern period as a model for Western nationhood. Ardis Butterfield reassesses the concept of 'nation' in this period through a wide-ranging discussion of writing produced in war, truce, or exile from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century, concluding with reflections on the retrospective views of this conflict created by the trials of Jeanne d'Arc and by Shakespeare's Henry V. She considers authors writing in French, 'Anglo-Norman', English, and the comic tradition of Anglo-French 'jargon', including Machaut, Deschamps, Froissart, Chaucer, Gower, Charles d'Orléans, as well as many lesser-known or anonymous works. Traditionally Chaucer has been seen as a quintessentially English author. This book argues that he needs to be resituated within the deeply francophone context, not only of England but the wider multilingual cultural geography of medieval Europe. It thus suggests that a modern understanding of what 'English' might have meant in the fourteenth century cannot be separated from 'French', and that this has far-reaching implications both for our understanding of English and the English, and of French and the French.


French in Medieval Ireland, Ireland in Medieval French

French in Medieval Ireland, Ireland in Medieval French

Author: Keith Busby

Publisher: Brepols Publishers

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9782503570211

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This book is a ground-breaking study of the cultural and linguistic consequences of the English invasion of Ireland in 1169, and examines the ways in which the country is portrayed in French literature of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries. Works such as La geste des Engleis en Yrlande and The Walling of New Ross, written in French in a multilingual Ireland, are studied in their literary and historical contexts, and the works of the Dominican friar Jofroi de Waterford (c. 1300) are shown to have been written in Ireland, rather than Paris, as has always been assumed. After exploring how the dissemination and translation of early Latin texts of Irish origin concerning Ireland led to the country acquiring a reputation as a land of marvels, this study argues that increasing knowledge of the real Ireland did little to stymie the mirabilia hibernica in French vernacular literature. On the contrary, the image persisted to the extent of retrospectively associating central motifs and figures of Arthurian romance with Ireland. This book incorporates the results of original archival research and is characterized by close attention to linguistic details of expression and communication, as well as historical, codicological, and literary contexts.


Living Death in Medieval French and English Literature

Living Death in Medieval French and English Literature

Author: Jane Gilbert

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2011-02-17

Total Pages: 293

ISBN-13: 1139495550

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Medieval literature contains many figures caught at the interface between life and death - the dead return to place demands on the living, while the living foresee, organize or desire their own deaths. Jane Gilbert's original study examines the ways in which certain medieval literary texts, both English and French, use these 'living dead' to think about existential, ethical and political issues. In doing so, she shows powerful connections between works otherwise seen as quite disparate, including Chaucer's Book of the Duchess and Legend of Good Women, the Chanson de Roland and the poems of Francois Villon. Written for researchers and advanced students of medieval French and English literature, this book provides original, provocative interpretations of canonical medieval texts in the light of influential modern theories, especially Lacanian psychoanalysis, presented in an accessible and lively way.


Medieval French Literary Culture Abroad

Medieval French Literary Culture Abroad

Author: Jane Gilbert

Publisher:

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 301

ISBN-13: 0198832451

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Studies manuscript sources, often of under-studied works and writers, to reassess the use of French as a literary language outside France in the medieval period.