Poetry Archive
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Authentic performance of troubadour melodies
Posted on May 20, 2012 | No CommentsAncient Rome is remembered as one of the greatest military powers in history, its fame derived from the fearsome reputation of the empire's legionnaires. Lost in the telling, however, is the important role that espionage played in Rome's ascent to empire -
Mythic Transformations: Tree Symbolism in the Norse Plantation
Posted on May 17, 2012 | No CommentsThis thesis explores tree symbolism as interpreted from a selection of Old Norse poetic and prose mythological sources. -
The Court of Beast and Bough: Contesting the Medieval English Forest in the Early Robin Hood Ballads
Posted on May 6, 2012 | No CommentsThe medieval English forest has long been a space of contested legal meanings. After King William I first created the 75,000-acre New Forest, the English monarchy sought to define the vert, both legally and ideologically, as a multiplicity of sites in which the king’s rights were vigorously enforced. -
The Verb in Beowulf
Posted on April 26, 2012 | No CommentsThus, in a paper of the nature of this thesis, the Beowulfian novice is limited in scope and must be satisfied, at best, to open a small breach in the subject, examine one segment, focus his attention on one aspect, single out one featture of it, and channel the efforts of his research towards some contribution, no matter how small, to the over- all scholarship in the field. -
The human presence in Robert Henryson’s Fables and William Caxton’s The History of Reynard the Fox
Posted on April 26, 2012 | No CommentsThe principal method used is the gathering of specific instances of human presence in the two texts, and the categorising or coding of such instances, with the aid of the qualitative-data computer program QSR N6. -
Llywelyn ab Iorwerth : the making of a Welsh prince
Posted on April 26, 2012 | No CommentsFinally, this thesis seeks to address the limitations on Llywelyn’s successes, in light of succeeding events and concludes with a discussion of Llywelyn’s legendary status in the modern world. -
“Hic Facet Arthurus, Rex Quondam, Rexque Futurus:” The Analysis of Original Medieval Sources in the Search for the Historica King Arthur
Posted on April 24, 2012 | No CommentsThe heroic tales of the legendary King Arthur have survived throughout many centuries. Modern society has learned of this celebrated figure through oral and literary tradition, such as the works of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s pseudo-history Historia Regum Britanniae, Sir Thomas Malory’s romantic epic Le Morte d’Arthur and medieval Arthurian poetry. -
Medieval Sicilian lyric poetry : poets at the courts of Roger II and Frederick II
Posted on April 23, 2012 | No CommentsDuring the twelfth century, a group of poets at the Norman court in Sicily composed traditional Arabic panegyrics in praise of the kingdoms Christian monarchs. Less than a century later, at the court of Frederick II, Sicilian poets wrote the first lyric love poetry in an Italian vernacular. -
A survey of the scholarship of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Posted on April 17, 2012 | No CommentsA survey of the major themes of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (SGGK) reveals both the poem's complexity and the poet's artistry. A general examination of the poem permits commentary upon the work's historical background, thematic unity, and narrative structure. -
VAGANTES: “That is a Long Preamble of a Tale”: Mobile Narratives in Fragment III of the Canterbury Tales
Posted on April 6, 2012 | No CommentsThis paper focused on the 12 lines from fragment 3 of the Canterbury Tales of The Wife of Bath. -
Reading about Lancelot in Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde
Posted on April 5, 2012 | No CommentsThis book is the central one of Troilus and Criseyde’s five books, with the sexual union of Troilus with Criseyde forming the climax and turning-point of the entire plot-structure, condensed at the start of the work by Chaucer in the words “fro woe to wele and after out of joie.” -
“Kan he speke wel of love?”: Luf talk and Chivalry
Posted on April 5, 2012 | No CommentsIn my view, Criseyde’s inquiry about Troilus’s verbal skill in “luf talk” highlights more a problematic issue of Criseyde’s concern about a man’s “loves craft” than that of his class in society. As Chaucer’s narrator remarks in the proem of Book II (22-42), every human activity in love is governed by language conventions, expressive shortcuts that a community agrees to understand and honor... -
Hidden Manna and the Holy Grail: The Psychedelic Sacrament in Arthurian Romance The Mystery of Manna: The Psychedelic Sacrament of the Bible Park Street Press (2000)
Posted on April 3, 2012 | No CommentsScholars are generally agreed that Arthurian wonder tales like “Cullhwch and Olwen” must have been widely distributed in Wales, Cornwall, and Brittany in advance of the Norman conquest of England in 1066. Belief in a living Arthur was then in the air. -
The Economics of Lady Mede’s Agency in The Vision of Piers the Plowman
Posted on March 31, 2012 | No CommentsThis paper will argue that rather than being controlled by the process of sexual commodification Lady Mede uses the correlation of gender, money, and sex to counter Conscience’s attempts to discount her place in the court and, in so doing, her agency. -
VAGANTES: “What has Beowulf to do with a Christian King?” Heroic Legend as Poetic Speculum Principis
Posted on March 30, 2012 | No CommentsThrough a rhetorical analysis based in grounded theory that analyzes fifteen speeches and their contexts made by Hroðgar, Beowulf, and Wiglaf, I will show how the poet appropriated the Beowulf legend to present a dramatized speculum principis using the rhetorical devices common to oral-traditional narratives to articulate the three traits of kingship most highly valued by both secular and sacred authorities: generosity, faith, and protectiveness.
