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Durham E-Theses Challenging the Authority of Identity: The Spaces of Memory in Medieval English Romance. MCKINSTRY, JAMES,ANDREW How to cite: MCKINSTRY, JAMES,ANDREW (2012) Challenging the Authority of Identity: The Spaces of Memory in Medieval English Romance. , Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/4941/ 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 1 Challenging the Authority of Identity: The Spaces of Memory in Medieval English Romance. By James Andrew McKinstry. As episodic narratives, romances depend upon an inherent understanding of the powers of memory and recollection to ensure that the authority of characters, narratives and the chivalric ideal are identified and sustained. Memory is mapped onto literal journeys, places, and correlative experiences, and the thesis examines the processes through which this is achieved in medieval English romances. Distractions of the present are often complicated by unfamiliarity, forgetfulness, disguises and incognito, or threats from Otherworldly challenges, (mis)fortune, and time itself. Consequently, in contrast to simple learning in the manner of mnemonics, romances promote a dynamic continuum between past and present which preserves the medieval memorial principles of order and place along with the creative freedom for interpretation advocated at the heart of medieval memoria. Using classical and medieval memory theories, the thesis examines the creative challenges for memory in a selection of established romances such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Sir Orfeo, Emaré, and King Horn, including those of Chaucer and Malory, along with lesser studied, longer romances such as William of Palerne, Ipomadon and Beves of Hamtoun. Characters and audiences create their own stable set of memories from within and beyond each tale which they recollect, often as imaginatively changed forms, into present experiences and future situations. By avoiding the temptation to forget and remaining open to referential moments, a lost knight is united with his remembered love, situations mysteriously chime with those witnessed before, and pressures of change become the reassuring familiarity and expectation of a past reimagined. In romances the memorial places, objects, and rituals are of great importance, but so too are the spaces between these recognisable points. This is the expanse of time which allows the creative work of memory to truly flourish and preserves the identity and authority of the narratives themselves. 2 Challenging the Authority of Identity: The Spaces of Memory in Medieval English Romance. James Andrew McKinstry Doctor of Philosophy Department of English Studies Durham University 2012 3 Table of Contents List of Abbreviations 4 Statement of Copyright 5 Acknowledgements 6 Chapter One Introduction: Memories of Romance. 7 Chapter Two Medieval Memories in Theory and Performance. 30 Chapter Three Topography, Redaction, and Inheritance: The Physical catena of Romance. 61 Chapter Four Past Rituals and Present “Forests”: Negotiating ductus and skopos. 94 Chapter Five Trusting Memory in Romance. 140 Chapter Six Failed Memories: Forgetting, Lying, Obstructing. 178 Chapter Seven The Memory of Change: “he that had hadde.” 218 Chapter Eight Unforgettable or (Un)fortunate Romance. 256 Chapter Nine Conclusions: Necessary Possibilities for Romance memoria. 290 Bibliography 304 4 Abbreviations ANTS Anglo-Norman Text Society BD The Book of the Duchess CCCM Corpus christianorum continuatio medievalis CCSL Corpus christianorum series latina CFMA Classiques français du moyen age CSEL Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum EETS Early English Text Society E.S. Extra Series O.S. Original Series S.S. Supplementary Series HF The House of Fame KnT The “Knight’s Tale” LCL Loeb Classical Library LGW The Legend of Good Women MED The Middle English Dictionary Mel The “Tale of Melibee” MLT The “Man of Law’s Tale” OED The Oxford English Dictionary PL Patrologia cursus completus series latina PMLA Publications of the Modern Languages Association Rom The Romaunt of the Rose TC Troilus and Criseyde TEAMS The Consortium for the Teaching of the Middle Ages Th The “Tale of Sir Thopas” TLF Textes littéraires français 5 The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without the author’s prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. 6 Acknowledgements This thesis was made possible through the award of an Arts and Humanities Research Council Doctoral Studentship from 2009-12. I would also like to acknowledge the Durham Graduate School and Faculty of Arts and Humanities for the award of an Arts and Humanities M.A. Scholarship for 2008-9 when some of the initial research for the thesis was conducted. My thanks also go to the generous support of the members and visiting scholars in the Institute of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, the Centre for Medical Humanities, and the Department of English Studies whose insightful comments and suggestions allowed the project to develop in so many varied directions in history, medicine, psychology, and literature. I thank individually Dr Neil Cartlidge for his assistance and guidance with the thesis as my advisor. I would especially like to thank my supervisor, Professor Corinne Saunders, whose enthusiasm for the project throughout its stages, knowledge of medieval romance, unparalleled eye for detail, and wise guidance, has contributed so much to the finished study. I would like to give final, heartfelt thanks to my parents. It is on account of their unconditional practical, financial, and emotional support that this research was at all possible. 7 CHAPTER ONE Introduction: Memories of Romance. forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit.1 [The future is] that which cannot be anticipated and which always marks the memory of the past as experience of the promise.2 During the first half of the thirteenth century, at the University of Bologna, Boncompagno da Signa declared that “[m]emory is a glorious and wonderful gift of nature, by which we recall the past, comprehend the present, and contemplate the future through its similarities with the past.”3 To this day, memory is relied upon as a source of great authority socially, politically, and personally. Yet, on account of its elusiveness and inherent connection with the subject or subjects attempting to classify its workings, the faculty remains mysterious. There are great questions surrounding its longevity (the recollection of old events, apparently long-forgotten), the connections with future occasions or emotions through uncanny coincidence or déjà vu, and its frustrating failure at crucial moments. We therefore appreciate the ability of memory to maintain, but also question, authority itself whether in relation to information or, more disturbingly, identity. How stable are our memories, and what effect does this have on 1 P. Vergili Maronis, Aeneidos: Liber Primus, ed. R. G. Austin (Oxford: Clarendon, 1971) 203. All subsequent quotations from the Aeneid I will be to this edition and cited by line number. “Maybe the day’ll come when even this will be joy to remember.” Virgil, Aeneid, trans. Frederick Ahl, Oxford World’s Classics (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007). All subsequent translations from all books of the Aeneid will be from this edition. 2 Jacques Derrida, “‘Like the sound of the sea deep within a shell’: Paul de Man’s War,” trans. P. Kurnuf, Critical Inquiry 14 (1988): 590-652, at 595. 3 Boncompagno da Signa, “On Memory,” trans. Sean Gallagher, The Medieval Craft of Memory: An Anthology of Texts and Pictures, ed. Mary Carruthers and Jan M. Ziolkowski, Material Texts (Philadelphia, PA: U of Pennsylvania P, 2002). All subsequent quotations from da Signa, in translation, will be to this edition. The original text can be found in Boncompagno da Signa, Rhetorica novissima: Book 8, ed. Augusto Gaudenzi, Scripta Anecdota Glossatorum, Bibliotheca luridica Medii Aevi 2, 1892 (Turin: Bottega d’Erasmo, 1962) 249. 8 the information we are trying to recall which may be, variously, a person, a situation, or even aspects of our own life? Inheriting the philosophies of classical tradition, the Middle Ages had already recognised that memory was important in guaranteeing the ongoing authority of a particular identity, both socially and personally through “re- collecting” or “re-membering” which would accommodate a past in the present context. The late medieval period, much like today, enjoyed historical referents; there was the desire to use the past as an authoritative guide for present and future. However, the curiously medieval dynamic continuum between past and present made the workings of memory somewhat problematic: there was, ostensibly, a linear concept of time which recognised “an irretrievability of history, but [which] did not acknowledge a thorough alteration through the coming of new epochs.”4 Such an ambiguous “belief in historical progression and its consistency” is analogous to the process of recollection both in its design and the effort required in this process.5 In essence, socio-historical aspirations encountered philosophical, theological and psychological doctrine through shared concepts and aims. Simultaneously, political, literary, theological, legal, and philosophical discourses all relied, in significant ways, upon memorial ability, prompting numerous treatises on how to maximise the effectiveness of the memorial processes which, in turn, led to much discussion concerning the workings of memory itself.
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