Investigations into the heroic - or not - behaviour of the protagonists of medieval romance. Medieval romances so insistently celebrate the triumphs of heroes and the discomfiture of villains that they discourage recognition of just how morally ambiguous, antisocial or even downright sinister their protagonists can be, and, correspondingly, of just how admirable or impressive their defeated opponents often are. This tension between the heroic and the antiheroic makes a major contribution to the dramatic complexity of medieval romance, but it is not an aspect of the genre that has been frequently discussed up until now. Focusing on fourteen distinct characters and character-types in medieval narrative, this book illustrates the range of different ways in which the imaginative power and appeal of romance-texts often depend on contradictions implicit in the very ideal of heroism. Dr Neil Cartlidge is Lecturer in English at the University of Durham. Contributors: Neil Cartlidge, Penny Eley, David Ashurst, Meg Lamont, Laura Ashe, Judith Weiss, Gareth Griffith, Kate McClune, Nancy Mason Bradbury, Ad Putter, Robert Rouse, Siobhain Bly Calkin, James Wade, Stephanie Vierick Gibbs Kamath
New approaches to this most fluid of medieval genres, considering in particular its reception and transmission.Romance was the most popular secular literature of the Middle Ages, and has been understood most productively as a genre that continually refashioned itself. The essays collected in this volume explore the subject of translation, both linguistic and cultural, in relation to the composition, reception, and dissemination of romance across the languages of late medieval Britain, Ireland, and Iceland. In taking this multilingual approach, this volume proposes a re-centring, and extension, of our understanding of the corpus of medieval Insular romance, which although long considered extra-canonical, has over the previous decades acquired something approaching its own canon - a canon which we might now begin to unsettle, and of which we might ask new questions.The topics of the essays gathered here range from Dafydd ap Gwilym and Walter Map to Melusine and English Trojan narratives, and address topics from women and merchants to werewolves and marvels. Together, they position the study of romance in translation in relation to cross-border and cross-linguistic transmission and reception; and alongside the generic re-imaginings of romance, both early and late, that implicate romance in new linguistic, cultural, and social networks. The volume also shows how, even where linguistic translation is not involved, we can understand the ways in which romance moved across cultural and social boundaries and incorporated elements of different genres into its own capacious and malleable frame as types of translatio - in terms of learning, or power, or both. women and merchants to werewolves and marvels. Together, they position the study of romance in translation in relation to cross-border and cross-linguistic transmission and reception; and alongside the generic re-imaginings of romance, both early and late, that implicate romance in new linguistic, cultural, and social networks. The volume also shows how, even where linguistic translation is not involved, we can understand the ways in which romance moved across cultural and social boundaries and incorporated elements of different genres into its own capacious and malleable frame as types of translatio - in terms of learning, or power, or both. women and merchants to werewolves and marvels. Together, they position the study of romance in translation in relation to cross-border and cross-linguistic transmission and reception; and alongside the generic re-imaginings of romance, both early and late, that implicate romance in new linguistic, cultural, and social networks. The volume also shows how, even where linguistic translation is not involved, we can understand the ways in which romance moved across cultural and social boundaries and incorporated elements of different genres into its own capacious and malleable frame as types of translatio - in terms of learning, or power, or both. women and merchants to werewolves and marvels. Together, they position the study of romance in translation in relation to cross-border and cross-linguistic transmission and reception; and alongside the generic re-imaginings of romance, both early and late, that implicate romance in new linguistic, cultural, and social networks. The volume also shows how, even where linguistic translation is not involved, we can understand the ways in which romance moved across cultural and social boundaries and incorporated elements of different genres into its own capacious and malleable frame as types of translatio - in terms of learning, or power, or both.uistic translation is not involved, we can understand the ways in which romance moved across cultural and social boundaries and incorporated elements of different genres into its own capacious and malleable frame as types of translatio - in terms of learning, or power, or both.
Romances were immensely popular with medieval readers, as evidenced by their ubiquity in manuscripts and early print. The essays collected here deal with the textual transmission of medieval romances in England and Scotland, combining this with investigations into their metre and form; this comparison of the romances in both their material form and their verse form sheds new light on their cultural and social contexts. Topics addressed include the singing of Middle English romance; the printed transmission of romance from Caxton to Wynkyn de Worde; and the representation of the Otherworld in manuscript miscellanies.
Studies of how the physical manifests itself in medieval romance - and medieval romances as objects themselves. Medieval romance narratives glitter with the material objects that were valued and exchanged in late-medieval society: lovers' rings and warriors' swords, holy relics and desirable or corrupted bodies. Romance, however, is also agenre in which such objects make meaning on numerous levels, and not always in predictable ways. These new essays examine from diverse perspectives how romances respond to material culture, but also show how romance as a genre helps to constitute and transmit that culture. Focusing on romances circulating in Britain and Ireland between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries, individual chapters address such questions as the relationship between objects and protagonists in romance narrative; the materiality of male and female bodies; the interaction between visual and verbal representations of romance; poetic form and manuscript textuality; and how a nineteenth-century edition of medieval romances provoked artists to homage and satire. NICHOLAS PERKINS is Associate Professor and Tutor in English at St Hugh's College, University of Oxford. Contributors: Siobhain Bly Calkin, Nancy Mason Bradbury, Aisling Byrne, Anna Caughey, Neil Cartlidge, Mark Cruse, Morgan Dickson, Rosalind Field, Elliot Kendall, Megan G. Leitch, Henrike Manuwald, Nicholas Perkins, Ad Putter, Raluca L. Radulescu, Robert Allen Rouse,
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.
Preliminary material /Editors Reading La3amon's -- INTRODUCTION /ROSAMUND ALLEN , JANE ROBERTS and CAROLE WEINBERG -- DID LAWMAN NOD, OR IS IT WE THAT YAWN? /ROSAMUND ALLEN -- THE BRUT AS SAXON LITERATURE: THE NEW PHILOLOGISTS READ LAWMAN /HARUKO MOMMA -- “ÞE TIDEN OF ÞISSE LONDE” - FINDING AND LOSING WALES IN LA3AMON'S BRUT /SIMON MEECHAM-JONES -- THE SEVERN: BARRIER OR HIGHWAY? /ANDREW WEHNER -- THE POLITICAL NOTION OF KINGSHIP IN LA3AMON'S BRUT /ERIC STANLEY -- QUEER MASCULINITY IN LAWMAN'S BRUT /JOHN BRENNAN -- LA3AMON'S LEIR: LANGUAGE, SUCCESSION, AND HISTORY /KENNETH J. TILLER -- LOSING THE PAST: CEZAR'S MOMENT OF TIME IN LAWMAN'S BRUT /JOSEPH D. PARRY -- LAWMAN, BEDE, AND THE CONTEXT OF SLAVERY /DANIEL DONOGHUE -- DRINKING OF BLOOD, BURNING OF WOMEN /ANDREW BREEZE -- THE CORONATION OF ARTHUR AND GUENEVERE IN GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH'S HISTORIA REGUM BRITANNIAE, WACE'S ROMAN DE BRUT, AND LAWMAN'S BRUT /CHARLOTTE A.T. WULF -- LA3AMON'S GESTURES: BODY LANGUAGE IN THE BRUT /BARRY WINDEATT -- CONQUEST BY WORD: THE MEETING OF LANGUAGES IN LA3AMON'S BRUT /HANNAH MCKENDRICK BAILEY -- A TALE OF TWO CITIES: LONDON AND WINCHESTER IN LA3AMON'S BRUT /IAN KIRBY -- MAPPING THE NATIONAL NARRATIVE: PLACE-NAME ETYMOLOGY IN LA3AMON'S BRUT AND ITS SOURCES /JOANNA BELLIS -- THE LEXICAL FIELD “WARRIOR” IN LA3AMON'S BRUT - A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE TWO VERSIONS /CHRISTINE ELSWEILER -- THE LANGUAGE OF LAW: LOND AND HOND IN LA3AMON'S BRUT /DEBORAH MARCUM -- FRIÐ AND GRIÐ: LA3AMON AND THE LEGAL LANGUAGE OF WULFSTAN /SCOTT KLEINMAN -- LA3AMON'S PROSODY: CALIGULA AND OTHO - METRES APART /ERIK KOOPER -- GETTING LA3AMON'S BRUT INTO SHARPER FOCUS /JANE ROBERTS -- JULIUS CAESAR AND THE LANGUAGE OF HISTORY IN LA3AMON'S BRUT /CAROLE WEINBERG -- LA3AMON'S URSULA AND THE INFLUENCE OF ROMAN EPIC /NEIL CARTLIDGE -- CONSTRUCTING TONWENNE: A GESTURE AND ITS HISTORY /GAIL IVY BERLIN -- WACE TO LA3AMON VIA WALDEF /JUDITH WEISS -- TRANSLATING ENGLAND IN MEDIEVAL ICELAND: GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH'S HISTORIA REGUM BRITANNIE AND BRETA SQGUR /SARAH BACCIANTI -- LA3AMON'S WELSH /JENNIFER MILLER -- THE WISDOM OF HINDSIGHT IN LA3AMON AND SOME CONTEMPORARIES /M. LEIGH HARRISON -- READING THE LANDSCAPES OF LA3AMON'S ARTHUR: PLACE, MEANING AND INTERTEXTUALITY /GARETH GRIFFITH -- LA3AMON'S BRUT AND THE VERNACULAR TEXT: WIDENING THE CONTEXT /ELIZABETH J. BRYAN -- BIBLIOGRAPHY /Editors Reading La3amon's -- NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS /Editors Reading La3amon's -- Index /Editors Reading La3amon's.
Imagining Iberia in English and Castilian Medieval Romance offers a broad disciplinary, linguistic, and national focus by analyzing the literary depiction of Iberia in two European vernaculars that have rarely been studied together. Emily Houlik-Ritchey employs an innovative comparative methodology that integrates the understudied Castilian literary tradition with English literature. Intentionally departing from the standard “influence and transmission” approach, Imagining Iberia challenges that standard discourse with modes drawn from Neighbor Theory to reveal and navigate the relationships among three selected medieval romance traditions. This welcome volume uncovers an overemphasis in prior scholarship on the relevance of “crusading” agendas in medieval romance, and highlights the shared investments of Christians and Muslims in Iberia’s political, creedal, cultural, and mercantile networks in the Mediterranean world.
Medieval romances with their magic fountains, brave knights, and beautiful maidens have come to stand for the Middle Ages more generally. This close connection between the medieval and the romance has had consequences for popular conceptions of the Middle Ages, an idealized fantasy of chivalry and hierarchy, and also for our understanding of romances, as always already archaic, part of a half-forgotten past. And yet, romances were one of the most influential and long-lasting innovations of the medieval period. To emphasize their novelty is to see the resources medieval people had for thinking about their contemporary concern and controversies, whether social order, Jewish/ Christian relations, the Crusades, the connectivity of the Mediterranean, women's roles as mothers, and how to write a national past. This volume takes up the challenge to 'think romance', investigating the various ways that romances imagine, reflect, and describe the challenges of the medieval world.
