Triangles of the Sacred Sisterhood
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.
Hopkins and Early English Riddling: Solving The Windhover?
In this article I will demonstrate that The Windhover has strong formal similarities with early English riddling. This genre, which has very little in common with modern riddles, has a range of distinctive formal conventions which, I argue, are also present in The Windhover, including an “entitled solution,” “kennings” and the use of formulae.
Lewis Morris and the Mabinogion
Lewis Morris (1700/1-1765) was regarded as the foremost Welsh antiquary and authority on Welsh literature of his day. A founding member of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion in 1751his expertise on Welsh literature and history was solicited by Welsh poets and antiquaries alike.
Madness and Gender in Late-Medieval English Literature
Madness has been long misrepresented in medieval studies. Assertions that conceptions of mental illness were unknown to medieval people, or that all madmen were assumed to be possessed by the devil, were at one time common in accounts of medieval society.
“Be waar, Hoccleue, I rede thee”: Intertextual Subjectivity in Thomas Hoccleve’s Petitioning Poetry
The way these operate can be seen in the section of La Male Regle from which I excerpted my paper’s title. It comes about three-quarters of the way through the poem when the narrator relates a first-hand account of how he and his Privy-Seal Office colleagues handle a night of drinking.
ARABIC CONFLUENCE FROM CONSTANTINE TO HERACLIUS: The Preparation for a 7th Century Religio-Racial Explosion
This paper’s argument is purposeless without the reader knowing the seventh century events of the so-called explosion of Islam, and the interpretation of which I find so contentious. Thus a brief description of the episode is necessary.
The Myth of the Anglo-Saxon Oral Poet
There are at least two reasons why the search for the Anglo-Saxon oral poet is worth reopening. To begin with, current thinking about oral poetry and poetics in the Anglo-Saxon period has been indelibly stamped by the classic Parry/Lord thesis, well known in its evolution from the 1950s to more recent years,
The Pseudo-Amphilochian Vita Basilii: An Apocryphal Life of Saint Basil the Great
There is yet another aspect of Basil’s greatness which is none of his making: of Basil it is possible to know more and to know it more surely, than it is of any other person, with the possible exception of Julian
the Apostate, who lived in the first millennium A.D. The physical relics may have disappeared, but the literary remains constitute a remarkable dossier of high historical value.
Transposition of Stanzas in Mediaeval Poetry, a Method of Analysis: Poems VII and X of Arnaut Daniel
A valid alternative is to attempt to understand the reason for the existence of the different versions and to use this knowledge in the choice of a version.
‘How Can His Word Be Trusted?’: Speaker and Authority in Old Norse Wisdom Poetry
This dissertation concerns the presentation of compilations of wisdom in Old Norse eddic poetry: how it was that the dozen poems one might classify, however tentatively, as wisdom poetry legitimized and put across their content.
The negotiation of gender and power in medieval German writings
The Christian religion plays a most important role in the internalization and re-enforcement of patriarchy in the Western world. As will be seen later in this thesis, the relationship between a patriarchal God and his “children” is reflected in the relationship between the male head of the family and his wife, children and servants.
The Prince and the Poet
In this essay, I will discuss the historical importance of panegyric poetry as a performative act, representing a component of a lord’s self-perception. I will limit myself, for the sake of time and for the sake of presenting a clear picture, to the poetry of the age of the Gogynfeirdd or not-so-early poets (about 1100 to 1282), representing the strongest tradition of patronage of poetry and a period of increased Welsh political independence.
Imagining Samarkand: Fruitful Themes in 13th-16th Century Literature on a Silk Road City
… Samarkand was seen as the last great urban Islamic stop.4 Perhaps because of this, the period between the Arab invasion of Samarkand and the Mongol invasion in 1220 fomented many of the mythologies about the city which will feature prominently in this paper.
Queer Pedagogy (A Roundtable)
A roundtable discussion on teaching Queer Theory with Susannah Mary Chewning (Union County College) Lisa Weston (California State University–Fresno); and Michelle M. Sauer, (University of North Dakota)
Constructions of Gender in Medieval Welsh Literature
The discussion of gender in medieval literary criticism is generally considered
to be a relatively new field, having achieved real momentum only in the latter half of the twentieth century. However, since it was the early fifteenth century when Christine de Pisan wrote a response to Jean de Meun’s Romance of the Rose, it cannot really be imagined that the medieval audience was too primitive to be fully aware of the subtext inside their stories.
Love, Mercy, and Courtly Discourse: Marguerite de Navarre Reads Alain Chartier
Love, Mercy, and Courtly Discourse: Marguerite de Navarre Reads Alain Chartier Frelick, Nancy (University of British Columbia) Mythes à la cour, mythes pour la four (2010).…
Types of physical exercise in Medieval Serbia (XII-XIV century)
It is often said of a nation that it is as rich as its history. All the efforts and desire to get to the roots of our past lead us inevitably to the Middle Ages and connect us to the spirit of the rule of the House of Nemanjić. A profound influence this dynasty exerted on the history of the people of Serbia points out their greatness and significance. Serbian army from the period of the Nemanjić reign was famed for its bravery, agility, endurance, persistence, wisdom and skillfulness varying by the type of warfare. Brave voivode and warriors were the apple of Serbia’s eye, which in turn caused heroism to become a lifestyle.
Saints and sinners in the works of Marie de France
What was Marie trying to share with her twelfth century audience when she wrote The Lais?
Authentic performance of troubadour melodies
Ancient 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
This 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
The 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
Thus, 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 overall scholarship in the field.
The human presence in Robert Henryson’s Fables and William Caxton’s The History of Reynard the Fox
The 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.