DOCSLIB.ORG

Durham Research Online

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Durham Research Online Durham Research Online Deposited in DRO: 26 May 2016 Version of attached le: Accepted Version Peer-review status of attached le: Peer-reviewed Citation for published item: Saunders, Corinne and Macnaughton, Jane and Fuller, David (2015) 'The recovery of beauty : arts, culture, medicine.', Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Further information on publisher's website: http://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9781137426734 Publisher's copyright statement: Corinne Saunders, Beauty, Virtue and Danger in Medieval English Romance, in The Recovery of Beauty: Arts, Culture, Medicine. Saunders, Corinne, Macnaughton, Jane, Fuller, David (Eds.) 2015, Palgrave Macmillan, reproduced with permission of Palgrave Macmillan. This extract is taken from the author's original manuscript and has not been edited. The denitive, published, version of record is available here: http://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9781137426734. Additional information: Sample chapter deposited. Chapter 2: 'Beauty, Virtue and Danger in Medieval English Romance', pp. 35-52. https://doi.org/10.1057/97811374267413 Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. Durham University Library, Stockton Road, Durham DH1 3LY, United Kingdom Tel : +44 (0)191 334 3042 | Fax : +44 (0)191 334 2971 https://dro.dur.ac.uk 1 Corinne Saunders Beauty, Virtue and Danger in Medieval English Romance Your yen two wol slee me sodenly; I may the beautee of hem not sustene, So woundeth hit thourghout my herte kene.1 Thus Geoffrey Chaucer on the beauty of his lady’s eyes, their power so great that she is ‘of [his] lyf and deeth the quene’ (9). Her beauty has chased pity from her heart and purchased him his death. These lines play on the medieval convention of love as illness that only the beloved can cure, and conceive of female beauty as an ambiguous force, enthralling in both positive and negative terms. In romance, the dominant fictional genre of the medieval period, female beauty is an imperative, signalling virtue and nobility, opening the way to the divine and inspiring the highest ideals, but at the same time dangerous, destructive, treacherous. Its powers can be magical and life-enhancing, literally wish-fulfilling, but also corrosive, imprisoning and death- dealing. Secular literary texts engage with the difficulties of interpreting beauty, of making sense of its affect. At the same time, beauty is strangely unelaborated in romance texts: interpretation cannot rest on detailed description of beauty, but must probe its often concealed valences, its collocations, and especially, the actions and consequences that attend beauty. Beauty proves virtue not only in those who possess it, but also in those who experience its power, both within and beyond the text. Ideas and Ideals The fraught relation of physical beauty to the mind and soul has a long history. Mark McIntosh’s essay in this volume shows compellingly the enduring relation of beauty to the divine. The idea of beauty is crucial to the Platonic concept of ideal forms underlying nature: in the Phaedrus, Plato depicts beauty as shining out in the 2 heavens. Earthly beauty is unique in its ability to recall its ideal form : ‘once here on earth we found, by means of the clearest of our senses, that it sparkles with particular clarity’; ‘it is only beauty which has the property of being especially visible and especially lovable’. Whereas the corrupt man surrenders to earthly pleasure, the soul of the initiate in philosophy flourishes and grows wings through gazing on the divine form of the beloved: ‘this is the experience men call love’. 2 Aristotle distinguishes beauty from good, but in the Metaphysics takes up the image to present the prime mover as an object of desire, setting the heavens in motion, in the same way that the soul is drawn by beauty. Crucial to his definition of beauty are ‘magnitude’ and ‘order, symmetry and delimitation’ – the objects of the mathematical sciences.3 Aristotle returns to the same principles in The Poetics: ‘beauty depends on size and order’; of a magnitude to be taken in by the eye and retained in memory.4 Beauty can perfect the senses and summon the soul, but Platonic ideas also underpin the ubi sunt motif so prominent in classical and medieval writing. The enduring beauty of the eternal is set against the ‘sleek looks’ of worldly beauty, ‘fleeting and transitory, more ephemeral than the blossom in spring’, as Boethius writes, an evocation of worldly transience especially influential for later Christian writers.5 For St Augustine, perhaps the single most influential thinker for the later Middle Ages, who was profoundly influenced by neo-Platonic philosophy, earthly beauty is a potential snare, distracting from ‘that beauty which is higher than souls’. He is torn between the pull of corporeal and divine, ‘But although I am the person saying this and making the distinction, I also entangle my steps in beautiful externals. However, you rescue me, Lord, you rescue me’.6 The beauty of the created world, including human beauty, both reflects and distracts from the divine. Medieval asceticism renounces worldly beauty precisely because of this power: ‘We who have 3 turned aside from society, relinquishing for Christ’s sake all the precious and beautiful things in the world, its wondrous light and colour, its sweet sounds and odours, the pleasures of taste and touch, for us all bodily delights are nothing but dung’, writes St Bernard of Clairvaux.7 Yet theologians continue to recognise the moving and transformative power of beauty, and its relation to inner beauty. Elsewhere, St Bernard describes the brightness of beauty as replenishing the secret places of the heart and shining forth openly in the body: ‘The body is an image of the mind, which, like an effulgent light scattering forth its rays, is diffused through its members and senses, shining through in action, discourse, appearance, movement – even in laughter. ’8 Hugh of St Victor recommends the aesthetic power of beauty: ‘Look upon the world and all that is in it: you will find much that is beautiful and desirable . Gold . has its brilliance, the flesh its comeliness, clothes and ornaments their colour.’9 If beauty could distract, it could also open the way to Paradise. Abbot Suger of St Denis is eager to follow the model of King Solomon, filling his church with beautiful things that carry the soul to God. Through ‘the loveliness of the many-colored gems’ he is ‘called . away from external cares’ and ‘transported from this inferior to that higher world in an anagogical manner’.10 Considerably more problematic than the ornamentation of churches or the power of art was the beauty of woman. In classical writing, there was already a well- established strand of misogyny, and a sense of the dangers of female beauty and desire. Aristotelian physiology places women as bodily, passive, defective, whereas men are associated with the soul, rationality and action. The poetry of Ovid and Juvenal is sharply satirical concerning the dangers as well as the fascinations of women. In medieval thought, these preconceptions merge with Scriptural warnings 4 concerning women – in Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, in exemplary stories such as that of David and Bathsheba (2 Samuel, 11), in the epistles of St Paul, who requires that women be silent and modestly covered (1 Corinthians, 14: 34). All look back to the paradigm of Eve: created by God out of Adam’s rib, and ruled by the bodily rather than the rational, seduced by the serpent and seducing Adam, causing the Fall and the first sin of concupiscence. But it is too easy to separate notions of female beauty from more general conceptions of beauty: the more positive, idealised aspect of beauty as an effulgent force does not disappear in medieval attitudes to female beauty. Commentators on the Song of Songs discuss the beauty of the Spouse as representing the Church, but in so doing they also engage with the ideal of female beauty. The many representations of the Virgin in medieval art and sculpture signal the transcendent power of female beauty, which in Mary reverses the Fall and rewrites the name of Eve as Ave. Despite a recurrent emphasis on the dangers of female beauty, the association between beauty and virtue is fundamental to both sacred and secular writing, an essential building block of romance. Suspense and drama are created by the tension between the expectation that interior and exterior, body and soul, will be aligned and the fear that they are not. In the female figures of romance, beauty shines out as a transformative, sometimes dangerous and destructive, force. It is no coincidence that its power can be associated with magic. In the enchantress, we see most clearly the two faces of beauty. Shining beauty The interweaving of idealism and realism, convention and originality characteristic of the romance genre is evident in its depictions of beauty. Beauty is a given of medieval romance, as it is of hagiography, where the almost invariable beauty of female saints reflects their inner virtue. Romance is similarly peopled by 5 idealised ladies, who possess the physical attributes associated with beauty in this period – fair hair, grey eyes, white skin, red cheeks, harmony of features, form and proportion.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • 1 Middle English Breton Lays & Chaucer's Franklin's Tale
    MIDDLE ENGLISH BRETON LAYS & CHAUCER’S FRANKLIN’S TALE Claire Vial, université de Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle 1 ÉDITIONS ****BENSON Larry D., The Riverside Chaucer: based on the works of Geoffrey Chaucer (1987), OxFord, OUP, 2008. CREPIN André, Les Contes de Canterbury, présentation et traduction nouvelle, Paris, Gallimard, « Folio classique », 2000. ****LASKAYA Anne, SALISBURY Eve (eds), The Middle English Breton Lays, Kalamazoo, MI, Medieval Institute Publications For TEAMS, “Middle English Texts”, 1995. Disponible en ligne : http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/salisbur.htm ****MORGAN Gerald, The Franklin's Tale: from The Canterbury Tales, Dublin, Irish Academic Press, 1992. ****SPEARING A. C., Chaucer: The Franklin’s Prologue and Tale (1966), Cambridge, CUP, 1994. 2 MANUSCRITS NB : les réFérences aux manuscrits originaux Figurent dans le recueil de Laskaya et Salisbury ; dans la présente bibliographie, on a privilégié les analyses critiques des manuscrits. ALAMICHEL Marie-Françoise, « Paroles et silences », Cahiers de recherches médiévales et humanistes, 2010, 19, p. 27-41. BLISS Alan J., “Notes on the Auchinleck Manuscript”, Speculum, Oct. 1951, 26-4: 652-658. ****BURNLEY David, WIGGINS Alison (eds), The Auchinleck Manuscript, National Library oF Scotland, 2003, http://auchinleck.nls.uk/ ***HANNA Ralph, “Reconsidering the Auchinleck Manuscript” in PEARSALL Derek (ed.), New Directions in Later Medieval Manuscript Studies: Essays From the 1998 Harvard Conference, Woodbridge, Boydell and Brewer, 2000, p. 91-102. **HIBBARD LOOMIS Laura, “Chaucer and the Breton Lays of the Auchinleck Manuscript”, Studies in Philology, 1941, 38: 14-33. Repr. in Adventures in the Middle Ages, New York, Burt Franklin, 1962, p. 131-149. Disponible en ligne : http://archive.org/stream/adventuresinmidd00loom/adventuresinmidd00loom_djvu.txt —, “The Auchinleck Manuscript and a Possible London Bookshop oF 1330-1340”, PMLA, 1942, 57: 595-627.
    [Show full text]
  • The Queer Fantasies of Normative Masculinity in Middle English Popular Romance
    University of Montana ScholarWorks at University of Montana Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers Graduate School 2014 The Queer Fantasies of Normative Masculinity in Middle English Popular Romance Cathryn Irene Arno The University of Montana Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation Arno, Cathryn Irene, "The Queer Fantasies of Normative Masculinity in Middle English Popular Romance" (2014). Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers. 4167. https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/4167 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at ScholarWorks at University of Montana. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at University of Montana. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE QUEER FANTASIES OF NORMATIVE MASCULINITY IN MIDDLE ENGLISH POPULAR ROMANCE By CATHRYN IRENE ARNO Bachelor of Arts, University of Montana, Missoula, 2008 Thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in English Literature The University of Montana Missoula, MT December 2013 Approved by: Sandy Ross, Dean of The Graduate School Graduate School Dr. Ashby Kinch, Chair Department of English Dr. Elizabeth Hubble, Department of Women’s and Gender Studies Dr. John Hunt, Department of English © COPYRIGHT by Cathryn Irene Arno 2014 All Rights Reserved ii Arno, Cathryn, M.A., Fall 2013 English The Queer Fantasies of Normative Masculinity in Middle English Popular Romance Chairperson: Dr. Ashby Kinch This thesis examines how the authors, Geoffrey Chaucer and Thomas Chestre, manipulate the construct of late fourteenth-century normative masculinity by parodying the aristocratic ideology that hegemonically prescribed the proper performance of masculine normativity.
    [Show full text]
  • Nobility in Middle English Romance
    Nobility in Middle English Romance Marianne A. Fisher A dissertation submitted for the degree of PhD Cardiff University 2013 Summary of Thesis: Postgraduate Research Degrees Student ID Number: 0542351 Title: Miss Surname: Fisher First Names: Marianne Alice School: ENCAP Title of Degree: PhD (English Literature) Full Title of Thesis Nobility in Middle English Romance Student ID Number: 0542351 Summary of Thesis Medieval nobility was a compound and fluid concept, the complexity of which is clearly reflected in the Middle English romances. This dissertation examines fourteen short verse romances, grouped by story-type into three categories. They are: type 1: romances of lost heirs (Degaré, Chevelere Assigne, Sir Perceval of Galles, Lybeaus Desconus, and Octavian); type 2: romances about winning a bride (Floris and Blancheflour, The Erle of Tolous, Sir Eglamour of Artois, Sir Degrevant, and the Amis– Belisaunt plot from Amis and Amiloun); type 3: romances of impoverished knights (Amiloun’s story from Amis and Amiloun, Sir Isumbras, Sir Amadace, Sir Cleges, and Sir Launfal). The analysis is based on contextualized close reading, drawing on the theories of Pierre Bourdieu. The results show that Middle English romance has no standard criteria for defining nobility, but draws on the full range on contemporary opinion; understandings of nobility conflict both between and within texts. Ideological consistency is seldom a priority, and the genre apparently serves neither a single socio-political agenda, nor a single socio-political group. The dominant conception of nobility in each romance is determined by the story-type. Romance type 1 presents nobility as inherent in the blood, type 2 emphasizes prowess and force of will, and type 3 concentrates on virtue.
    [Show full text]
  • Lancelot-Cluebook
    Clue Book Designed By Kathi B. Somers Maps Drawn By Thomas J. Clement This book contains clues and maps for all three parts of the LANCELOT game. As you play the game, note on your maps where you find particular items, people, or creatures. This way, if you neglect to save your game to disk or some other disaster befalls, you'll have an easier time of retracing your steps. Lancelot game © 1988 Mandarin Software. Datasoft is a registered trademark of lntelliCreations, Inc., a Software Toolworks company. ©1988 lntelliCreations, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in USA. LANCELOT CLUES Listed alphabetically below are most of the objects, creatures, people, and locations, in Lancelot. These clues are divided into sections corresponding with the three parts of the game: Camelot!Logris General Clues, Objects, Creatures & People; The Grail Quest General Clues, Objects, Creatures & People; and Answers for all three parts of the game. To find out about an entry in the list, look up the bracketed numbers next to the entry. Keep looking up the numbered answers until you have all the information you need about an entry. These clues are designed so you get only a small bit of information at a time, without giving away too much of the game. Example: Armour: where (751) ; details (764) . Look up entry 751, and you'll see that the Armour is Worn by Lancelot. Entry 764 tells you the Armour is Always with Lancelot, exvcept when he climbs the elm (703) or says farewell at the end (795). Look up 703 and ... well, you take it from there I A few "red herrings" have been mixed in with the real clues.
    [Show full text]
  • Trust, Relationships & Friendly Feelings in Thomas Chestre's Sir
    Trust, Relationships & Friendly Feelings in Thomas Chestre’s Sir Launfal1 Deborah Seiler University of Western Australia The fourteenth century Breton lai Sir Launfal, written by Thomas Chestre, has been approached from several different direction: honour, gender, knightly ideals, just to name a few; trust, however, has not yet been employed to look at the lai. As a category of historical analysis, trust is very promising, as it is inherent in all human relationships. In Sir Launfal, Chestre uses trust – expressed through wealth and the lack of it – to highlight Launfal’s inherent worth. By formulating a context-based definition of trust, and then applying it to the text of Sir Launfal, this article shows that trust can be a useful category for historical analysis. In the context of society, there is perhaps nothing as necessary as trust. It is, as the Russian historian George Hosking has noted, ‘one of the most pervasive – and perhaps for that reason least noticed – aspects of social life.’ In order to live, he states, we need to display trust.2 Once one starts focusing on trust as a category of historical analysis, it becomes clear how integral it is to everyday life: nearly every action and reaction is based on some form of trust. This is seen both in personal relationships, where trust is established over a period of time, as emotional boundaries are removed or shifted, and in public relationships that are based on social assumptions, as when a person’s clothing indicates a social status that comes with a level of trustworthiness. Literature in particular can reveal a great deal about how trust has been viewed historically, since it allows for an expression of ideology relatively unrestrained by the strictures – moral, literal, social, physical – of reality.
    [Show full text]
  • Lancelot-Hints
    LANCELOT CLUES. COPYRIGHT (C) 1988 LEVEL 9 COMPUTING This clue sheet starts with lists of things from each part of "Lancelot", first the adventures to become best knight in the land and complete the Round Table, and second the Grail Quest. Each section has General Hints, Objects, People and Creatures and finally Places. Look down the appropriate alphabetical list to find what you want to know about, then look up the entry corresponding to the bracketed number following. If you want to find something, for example, use the number after "where". For details of it, use the number after "dtl" (details). General Hints for Part 1 44 Coals: where (53). dtl (726) . 107 Shutters: where (119). dtl (566). 1 Beginning the game: (664). 45 Collection Bowl: 108 Snare: where (346). dtl {756). 2 Finding things: (7251. where !292). dtl !606) . 3 Finishing part 1 : (8 4) . 46 Crossbow: where !377). dtl (981). 109 Soup: where (401 dtl !606). 4 Game bacRground: (850). 47 Crystal: where (281). dtl (781). 111110 StoolStain:: where !7335 2l. • dtldt1 !740l.623 . 5 Going places: (737). 50 Dead Wood : where (312) dtl (654). 112 Sword: where 751 • dtl 764 . 6 Knigfits to rescue: (683). 51 Drawbridge: where (360!. dtl (602) . 115 Table Room: where !270). dtl (582) . 7 Orders to people: (671). 52 Elm Tree: where (592li dtl (703). 116 Tree. Elm: where (592) dtl !703) . 8 Scoring for Part 1: (750j. 53 Fire: where !275!· dt ~583! . 117 Tree . A~ple: where (576). dt1(707). 9 Solution of Part 1: (900 . 54 Flag: where 346 • dtl 853 .
    [Show full text]
  • In This Issue... Essays by Lisa Lapin, Timothy Noakes Bob O'donnell
    summer 2014 THE JOURNAL OF THE MASTER OF LIBERAL ARTS PROGRAM AT STANFORD UNIVERSITY in this issue... Essays by Lisa Lapin, Timothy Noakes Bob O’Donnell, Helen Peters Personal Essay by Cheri Block Sabraw Poems by Jennifer Swanton Brown, Katherine Orloff PUBLISHING NOTES This publication features the works of students and alumni of the Master of Liberal Arts Program at Stanford University. Editor Faculty Advisor Oscar Firschein Dr. Linda Paulson Assistant Editor Original Design Roxanne Enman Suzanne West Reviewers Layout of Current Issue Roxanne Enman Jill Kadlec, Principal Oscar Firschein AKA / Ahmann Kadlec Assoc., Palo Alto, CA Theda Firschein www.akacreativegroup.com Financial Contributions Contributions to support the production of Tangents can be sent to the attention of Dr. Linda Paulson, Stanford University, Littlefield Center, 365 Lasuen Street, Stanford, CA 94305-3004. Please make checks payable to Stanford University and clearly mark “For Tangents.” Rights and Permissions Copyrights for material included in this publication belong to their creators. Jackson Pollock – “Lucifer”: © 2014 The Pollock-Krasner Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; Sir Launcelot and the Witch Hellawes, Aubry Beardsley, The Savoy Magazine, 1870; Western Front, World War I, Wikipedia Commons. summer 2014 THE JOURNAL OF THE MASTER OF LIBERAL ARTS PROGRAM AT STANFORD UNIVERSITY VOLUME 13 in this issue... 2 Letter from the Editor Oscar Firschein 3 Remembering Joy Covey Linda Paulson 4 Jackson Pollock’s Lucifer: Mind, Motion and Maturity in
    [Show full text]
  • Women and Magic in Medieval Literature
    Women and Magic in Medieval Literature by Jessica Leigh In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS in The Department of English State University of New York New Paltz, New York 12561 November 2019 WOMEN AND MAGIC IN MEDIEVAL LITERATURE Jessica Leigh State University of New York at New Paltz _______________________________________ We, the thesis committee for the above candidate for the Master of Arts degree, hereby recommend Acceptance of this thesis. _______________________________________ Daniel Kempton, Thesis Advisor Department of English, SUNY New Paltz _______________________________________ Cyrus Mulready, Thesis Committee Member Department of English, SUNY New Paltz Approved on 12/06/2019 Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements For the Master of Arts degree in English at the State University of New York at New Paltz Leigh 1 One of the defining features of medieval literature is its relationship with a particular tradition of magic. Arthurian chivalric romance stands among some of the most well-known and enduring medieval literary pieces, appearing as a staple of Renaissance medievalism, Victorian medievalism, the work of pre-Raphaelites, and in modern pop culture, as in programs like Merlin. The tropes of Arthurian chivalric romance remain major identifiers of the Middle Ages. Even other major medieval texts still largely known and commonly studied in schools and universities today incorporate elements of the Arthurian tradition, as in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, or the wider chivalric tradition, as in the lais of Marie de France. The fictional worlds encompassed by medieval literature contain many legendary creatures, prophesied events, and magical items which give color and memorable character to these many tales.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction: to Be a Shapeshifter 1
    NOTES Introduction: To Be a Shapeshifter 1 . Sir Thomas Malory, Malory: Works , ed. Eugene Vinaver (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978 ), 716. 2 . Carolyne Larrington, for example, points out that “Enchantresses . sometimes . support the aims of Arthurian chivalry, at other times they can be hostile and petty-minded.” See King Arthur’s Enchantresses: Morgan and Her Sisters in Arthurian Tradition (New York: I. B. Taurus, 2007), 2. While Larrington’s book provides a review of many of Morgan’s literary appearances, my study focuses on close reading, attention to translation issues, and discussion of social concerns. In her review of Larrington’s King Arthur’s Enchantresses: Morgan and Her Sisters in Arthurian Tradition , Elizabeth Archibald laments that “it would have been interesting to hear more about the ways in which Arthurian enchantresses do or do not resemble their Classical precursors, or indeed Celtic ones, in their use of magic and in their challenges to male heroic norms.” See Elizabeth Archibald, “Magic School,” Times Literary Supplement (February 2, 2007), 9. My study answers this cri- tique by reexamining pivotal scenes in critical texts and by dismantling the archetypal approach that Larrington follows. 3 . Norris J. Lacy, ed., The Fortunes of King Arthur (New York: D. S. Brewer, 2005 ), 94–95. 4 . Helaine Newstead, Bran the Blessed in Arthurian Romance (New York: AMS Press, 1966 ), 149. 5 . Elisa Marie Narin, “‘Þat on . Þat oÞer’: Rhetorical Descriptio and Morgan La Fay in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight ,” Pacific Coast Philology 23 (1988): 60–66. Morgan only partly fits the description of a supernatural ‘enemy’ provided by Hilda Ellis Davidson and Anna Chaudri; see n.
    [Show full text]
  • Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} the Story of Queen Guinevere and Sir Lancelot
    Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} The Story Of Queen Guinevere And Sir Lancelot Of The Lake With Other Poems by Wilhelm Hertz The Story Of Queen Guinevere And Sir Lancelot Of The Lake: With Other Poems by Wilhelm Hertz. Access to raw data. The story of Queen Guinevere and Sir Lancelot of the lake. After the German of Wilhelm Hertz. With other poems. Abstract. Mode of access: Internet. To submit an update or takedown request for this paper, please submit an Update/Correction/Removal Request. Suggested articles. Useful links. Blog Services About CORE Contact us. Writing about CORE? Discover our research outputs and cite our work. CORE is a not-for-profit service delivered by the Open University and Jisc. Arthur, King. King Arthur was a legendary ruler of Britain whose life and deeds became the basis for a collection of tales known as the Arthurian legends. As the leading figure in British mythology, King Arthur is a national hero and a symbol of Britain's heroic heritage. But his appeal is not limited to Britain. The Arthurian story—with its elements of mystery, magic, love, war, adventure, betrayal, and fate—has touched the popular imagination and has become part of the world's shared mythology. The Celts blended stories of the warrior Arthur with those of much older mythological characters, such as Gwydion (pronounced GWID-yon), a Welsh priest-king. Old Welsh tales and poems place Arthur in traditional Celtic legends, including a hunt for an enchanted wild pig and a search for a magic cauldron, or kettle. In addition, Arthur is surrounded by a band of loyal followers who greatly resemble the disciples of Finn , the legendary Irish hero.
    [Show full text]
  • Xerox University Microfilms 300 Morth 2A«B Rote Aim Alter, Wcmswi 4*106 I 76-3419 ' DYKSTRA, Timothy Eugene, 1946- HUMOR in the MIDDLE ENGLISH METRICAL ROMANCES
    INFORMATION TO USERS This malaria! was produoad from a microfilm copy of tha original documant. Whila tha moat advanced technological mams to photograph and raproduoa this documant turn baan used, tha quality is heavily dapandant upon tha quality of tha original submittKl. Tha following explanation of techniques is provided to help you understand markings or patterns which may appear on this reproduction. 1. The sign or "target" for pages apparently lacking from the document photographed is "Missing Pag»(s|". If it was possible to obtain the missing paga(s) or section, they are spliced into tha film along with adjacent pages. This may have necessitated cutting thru an image and duplicating adjacent pages to insura you complete continuity. 2. When an imags on the film is obliterated with a large round black mark, it is an indication that tha photopapher suspected that the copy may have moved during exposure and thus cause a blurred image. You w ill find a good imags of the pegs in tha adjacent frame. 3. Whan a map, drawing or chart, etc., was part of the material being photographed tha photographer followed a definite method in "sectioning" the material. It is customary to begin photoing at the upper left hand comer of a large sheet and to continue photoing from left to right in equal sections with a small overlap. If necessary, sectioning is continued again — beginning below the first row and continuing on until complete. 4. The majority of users indicete that the textual content is of greatest value, however, a somewhat higher quality reproduction could bo made from "photographs" if essential to the understanding of the dissertation.
    [Show full text]
  • Durham E-Theses
    Durham E-Theses Dress, Identity and Visual Display: Self-Fashioning in Middle English Romance STAMATAKI, ALICE,CHRISTINA How to cite: STAMATAKI, ALICE,CHRISTINA (2018) Dress, Identity and Visual Display: Self-Fashioning in Middle English Romance, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/13006/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 DRESS, IDENTITY AND VISUAL DISPLAY: SELF-FASHIONING IN MIDDLE ENGLISH ROMANCE by Alice Christina Stamataki Abstract Clothing ‘speaks’. The act of dressing confers narratives of identity upon the wearer. The elite of late- medieval England understood the significance of dress; they utilised rich materials, strong colours and contemporary fashions to express, visually, statements of identity. These attitudes inform the expansive descriptions of rich dress in Middle English romance, in which a wealth of valuable materials, opulent accoutrements and contemporary fashions appear.
    [Show full text]