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The 14th century English alliterative poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is admired for its morally complex plot and brilliant poetics. A chivalric romance placed in an Arthurian setting, it has since received acclaim for its commentary regarding important socio-political and religious concerns. The poem's technical brilliance blends psychological depth and vivid language to produce an effect widely considered superior to any other work of the time. Although the poem is a combination of English alliterative meter, romanticism, and a wide-ranging knowledge of Celtic lore, continental materials and Latin classics, the extent to which Classical antecedents affected or directed the poem is a point of continued controversy among literary scholars. This collection of essays by scholars of diverse interests addresses this puzzling and fascinating question. The introduction provides an expansive background for the topic, and subsequent essays explore the extent to which classical Greek, Roman, Arabic, Christian and Celtic influences are revealed in the poem's opening and closing allusions, themes, and composition. Essays discuss the way in which the anonymous author of Sir Gawain employs figural echoes of classical materials, cultural memoirs of past British tradition, and romantic re-textualizations of Trojan and British literature. It is argued that Sir Gawain may be understood as an Aeneas, Achilles, or Odysseus figure, while the British situation in the 14th century may be understood as analogous to that of ancient Troy.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a masterpiece of medieval English literature and one of the finest Arthurian tales in any language. Though its ingenious plotting and verbal artistry continue to dazzle readers, it is written in a challenging regional dialect and uses many words that were already archaic when the poem was written in the late fourteenth century. This edition is designed to make the poem, in its original Middle English, accessible to students and general readers. Following standards adopted for editing other Middle English poets, the edition lightly normalizes spellings to make words more recognizable for a modern audience. Extensive marginal glossing of difficult words, thorough on-page explanatory notes, and a comprehensive glossary offer further support for readers. The historical appendices include other examples of medieval romance from France and Britain.
This volume is an attempt to discuss the ways in which themes of authority and gender can be traced in the writing of chronicles and chronicle-like writings from the early Middle Ages to the Renaissance. With major contributions by fourteen authors, each of them specialists in the field, this study spans full across the compass of medieval and early modern Europe, from England and Scandinavia, to Byzantium and the Crusader Kingdoms; embraces a variety of media and methods; and touches evidence from diverse branches of learning such as language and literature, history and art, to name just a few. This is an important collection which will be of the highest utility for students and scholars of language, literature, and history for many years to come.
This fascinating volume examines the enduring influence of courtly tradition and courtly love, particularly in contemporary popular culture. The ten chapters explore topics including the impact of the medieval troubadour in modern love songs, the legacy of figures such as Tristan, Iseult, Lancelot, Guinevere, and Merlin in modern film and literature, and more generally, how courtly and chivalric conceptions of love have shaped the Western world’s conception of love, loyalty, honor, and adultery throughout history and to this day.
The present volume is intended as a scientific conversation between pioneering research and the traditionally leading disciplines of medievalism. With that aim, the collection presents a selection of crucial essays to add to contemporary discussion which, however convergent and synchronous in approach, also pull in heterogeneous distinct ways and enhance the multiple perspectives which are currently embraced in the study of English medievalism. The chapters, fifteen in all, constitute a peer-reviewed selection of papers presented at the 22nd International Conference of the Spanish Society for Mediaeval English Language and Literature (SELIM), which brought together a large number of scholars worldwide, and was held at the Department of Modern Languages of the University of La Rioja in 2010. A brief glance at the book’s contents evinces the manifestly plural ways in which the English Middle Ages, the mesmerising media tempestas, are being addressed in current critical debate, from the diverse areas of linguistics, literature, teaching methodology and translation. In all, the book becomes exceptional witness to all these developments, being not foolhardy to predict that the dark old ages provide, as ever, foundations for stimulating new highlights and ideas.
Since its founding in 1943, Medievalia et Humanistica has won worldwide recognition as the first scholarly publication in America to devote itself entirely to medieval and Renaissance studies. Since 1970, a new series, sponsored by the Modern Language Association of America and edited by an international board of distinguished scholars and critics, has published interdisciplinary articles. In yearly hardcover volumes, the new series publishes significant scholarship, criticism, and reviews treating all facets of medieval and Renaissance culture: history, art, literature, music, science, law, economics, and philosophy. Volume 45 showcases the interdisciplinary nature of the series with articles on the ambiguity of Charlemagne in Late Medieval German literature, a Christian epic in favor of the Muslim sultan Mehmet II, theory and practice of literary supplementation in the case of Catullus’s carmen 51, and ekphrasis as a stylistic device in medieval poetics. Volume 45 also includes one review article and seven review notices that reflect the journal’s interdisciplinary scope. This volume focuses especially on the reception of Islam in Europe during the Middle Ages and in early modern times.
Significant Others explores the transformative possibilities of alterity or otherness and offers concrete case studies that provide a greater understanding and nuance with regard to aspects of deviance and difference in premodern court cultures. Both public and nominally private spaces were subject to the important influence of significant others, such as women, ethno-religious minorities, and marginalized and/or difficult-to-categorize men. From their positions within and ties to court cultures, these diverse outsiders - ‘others’ - played crucial roles in maintaining a fluidity essential for the successful sustaining of territorial monarchies and polities, challenging our understanding of the more narrowly defined elite behaviours that shaped premodern dynasties, rulers, societies, and cultures of the past. By exploring a variety of case studies from history and literature, such as Moroccan Jews as dhimmis (‘protected persons’), to bastards, mistresses, and sodomites in ancien régime France, to the transformative role of magic in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, this volume makes use of empirical and contextually informed research to respond to theoretical questions posed by recent historiography. With a cross-disciplinary approach, this collection of essays will be a valuable resource for all students and scholars interested in the diverse aspects and contexts of premodern ‘others’.
Chrysanthemum loves her name, until she starts going to school and the other children make fun of it.