What is Valentine’s Day without a little fairy tale romance? For your Valentine’s Day enjoyment, here are three medieval romances involving fairies.
Crafting the witch: Gendering magic in medieval and early modern England
November 2, 2014 By
This project documents and analyzes the gendered transformation of magical figures occurring in Arthurian romance in England from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries.
Caught in Love’s Grip: Passion and Moral Agency in French Courtly Romance
August 12, 2014 By
French royal courts in the late twelfth century were absolutely smitten with love. Troubadaours traveled from place to place reciting stories of knights and the ladies they wooed.
Estreitement bende: Marie de France’s Guigemar and the erotics of tight dress
January 8, 2014 By
This article examines the change in women’s fashion that occurred during the 12th century. Garments went from loose and flowing to tightly fitted, featuring belts and laces. The author examines this cultural change through the romance stories complied in the “Lais” of Marie de France, specifically one featuring the character of Guigemar.
Chaucer’s Arthuriana
March 18, 2013 By
The majority of medieval scholars, including Roger Sherman Loomis, argue that the popularity of the Arthurian legend in England was therefore on the wane in the latter half of the fourteenth century; as a result, the major writers of the period, such as John Gower and Geoffrey Chaucer, refrained from penning anything beyond the occasional reference to King Arthur and his court.
Speculations on the Celtic Origins of Marie de France’s ‘Eliduc’
March 4, 2013 By
The basic plot of the story is fantastic. A good and loyal knight is in exile from his own country, France, and offers his services to a king in England. There he falls in love with the princess even though he has a loyal and loving wife at home….
Lay Writers and the Politics of Theology in Medieval England From the Twelfth to Fifteenth Centuries
January 3, 2013 By
My intention is not to continue the discourse on such practices but to analyze narrative content in relation to the politics of theology that had an impact on lay writers and their artistic creativity concerning the search for selfhood from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries.
Monstrous transformations: loyalty and community in four medieval poems
September 23, 2012 By
I will examine two forms of transformation, the werewolf transformation and the monstrous human transformation, both of which feature shape shifters who presumably cannot be trusted
The Werewolf Pride Movement: A Step Back from Queer Medieval Tradition
September 20, 2012 By
Werewolf texts fiom the Middle Ages — namely, the early thirteenth-century romance, William of Palerne, and Marie de France’s early twelfth-century lay, ‘Bisclavret’ — suggest that the curse of fur might, after all, be a blessing to the individual dissatisfied with his or her place in society
Triangles of the Sacred Sisterhood
August 19, 2012 By
In courtly works, the resolution is generally in favour of the status quo as a courtly adulterous affair rarely works out, while in the fabliau the marriage is generally left intact, although a deceitful wife may be given carte blanche to philander.
Saints and sinners in the works of Marie de France
June 3, 2012 By
What was Marie trying to share with her twelfth century audience when she wrote The Lais?
Healing Leaves
December 27, 2011 By
Medieval French literature provides the modern researcher with references to the healing arts in many passages that are incorporated into prose or poetic works.
Displacement and redemption in the Lais of Marie de France
September 18, 2011 By
Displacement and redemption in the Lais of Marie de France Dunkel, Sharon Lynn M.A. Thesis (French), University of British Columbia, April (1988) Abstract In the endless cycle of life and death, the issues of love and marriage are a constant and recurrent theme of literature. The man, as a foreigner, comes to court the woman […]
Sir Launfal: A Portrait of a Knight in Fourteenth Century England
July 24, 2011 By
Sir Launfal may follow the footsteps of its ancestor, but probably with a different intent.
Courtly Love and the Representation of Women in the Lais of Marie de France and the Coutumes de Beauvaisis of Philippe de Beaumanoir
June 19, 2011 By
The Influence of Marie de France and Chretien de Troyes in Medieval Romance and Story-Telling
April 5, 2011 By
Get a Room: Private Space and Private People in Old French and Middle English Love Stories
October 6, 2010 By
This study explores the way in which one circumstance of daily life in the twelfth to fourteenth centuries—the relative scarcity of private space—influenced the literature of courtly love.
Adultery and Kingship in Marie de France’s Equitan
December 27, 2009 By
In medieval French literature, the conventional plot of courtly love focuses on the figure of the queen.
How you can Follow Us!