This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from Explore Bristol Research, http://research-information.bristol.ac.uk Author: Bull, Steve J Title: The Use and Development of the Faerie Sign in Romance from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Period General rights Access to the thesis is subject to the Creative Commons Attribution - NonCommercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International Public License. A copy of this may be found at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode This license sets out your rights and the restrictions that apply to your access to the thesis so it is important you read this before proceeding. Take down policy Some pages of this thesis may have been removed for copyright restrictions prior to having it been deposited in Explore Bristol Research. However, if you have discovered material within the thesis that you consider to be unlawful e.g. breaches of copyright (either yours or that of a third party) or any other law, including but not limited to those relating to patent, trademark, confidentiality, data protection, obscenity, defamation, libel, then please contact [email protected] and include the following information in your message: •Your contact details •Bibliographic details for the item, including a URL •An outline nature of the complaint Your claim will be investigated and, where appropriate, the item in question will be removed from public view as soon as possible. The Use and Development of the Faerie Sign in Romance from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Period Stephen Bull A dissertation submitted to the University of Bristol in accordance with the requirements for award of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Arts. School of Humanities May 2020 71,025 words 0 Abstract Within medieval and early modern romance, faeries frequently take on the appearance and customs of medieval courtly society, but they are also something distinctly other, existing on the fringes of the known world and unbeholden to either human or divine law. Faeries were ambiguous creatures whose appearance and function often defied categorisation. The absence of social or moral restrictions made them dangerous (although potentially rewarding) characters to be around, and so their incorporation into romance served to cultivate a sense of uncertainty amongst its audiences. However, there is also an extent to which faeries in romance conform to certain patterns, both in terms of the conventions that are used to identify them, and their purpose in relation to the shared construction of meaning within a text. The repeated themes and motifs that are used throughout romance to identify faerie characters and otherworldly settings are referred to throughout this thesis using the collective term the faerie sign. By identifying faeries in this way, the aim of this thesis is to focus on a broader range of examples than has been covered in previous studies on faeries in romance. By exploring different iterations of the faerie sign across selected medieval and early modern texts, my aim is to analyse how different authors engage intertextually with its conventions to propagate different meanings and agendas. Through the use of recognisable themes and motifs, the authors of these texts invited audiences to question the nature of the ambiguous otherworldly characters that populate romance (and other genres) and to examine their role in either upholding or challenging the personal, political, and religious values that these stories explored. The broad range of texts that are presented in this thesis will demonstrate how these faerie conventions took shape, and how they have been adapted and subverted from the Middle Ages to the early modern period. 1 Acknowledgements This thesis was made possible through the help and support of many people. I would like to thank the University of Bristol for their contribution to the funding of this thesis. I would like to thank my supervisors, Dr Cathy Hume and Dr Laurence Publicover, for their excellent guidance through each stage of the process. I would also like to thank Dr Tamsin Badcoe and Professor Helen Fulton for their contributions and advice. The sections in chapter five of this thesis on the anonymous Tragical History, Admirable Achievements and Various Events of Guy Earl of Warwick and Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist have appeared, in a slightly altered form, as an article in The Ben Jonson Journal, and I would like to thank the anonymous readers for their comments, and Professor Matthew Steggle for his advice prior to submission. I would like to thank my colleagues and fellow researchers, who have helped me to shape and articulate my ideas. And I would like to acknowledge Dr Corey Olson, whom I have never met, but whose recordings of the ‘Faerie and Fantasy’ course held at Washington College in 2011 gave me the inspiration to pursue this topic. Finally, I would like to thank my parents, Martin and Carole, my sister Helen, and my partner Amanda; I could not have done this without their encouragement and support. 2 I declare that the work in this dissertation was carried out in accordance with the requirements of the University's Regulations and Code of Practice for Research Degree Programmes and that it has not been submitted for any other academic award. Except where indicated by specific reference in the text, the work is the candidate's own work. Work done in collaboration with, or with the assistance of, others, is indicated as such. Any views expressed in the dissertation are those of the author. SIGNED: Stephen Bull DATE: 24 May 2020 3 Contents Introduction: The Faerie Sign..…………………………………………………………………………………. 5 Chapter One: The Faerie Sign Before Romance……………………………………………………….. 27 - Approaches to faerie……………………………………………………………………………… 33 - The Land of Women in Immram Brain……………………………….…………………… 41 - Pwyll Pendefig Dyfed: Arawn and Rhiannon...………………………………………… 51 Chapter Two: Chrétien, Chivalry, and the Supernatural…………………………………………… 64 - The chivalric ideal…………………………………………………………………………………… 70 - Chrétien and chivalry……………………………………………………………………………… 78 - Erec and the Joie de la Cour……………………………………………………………………. 82 - Lancelot and the Pont de l’Espee……………………………………………………………. 89 - Yvain and the castle of Pesme Aventure…………………………………………………. 96 - Perceval and the Roi Pescheor………………………………………………………………… 101 Chapter Three: Fairies and Orthodoxy in Middle English Romance………………………….. 111 - Faeries and the church…………………………………………………………………………… 113 - Sir Gowther and the sanitisation of the faerie sign…………………………………. 125 - The faerie sign in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight………………………………… 130 - The theology of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight………………………………….. 138 - The faerie landscapes of Pearl……………………………………………………………….. 144 Chapter Four: Spenser and the Diversification of Faeries………………………………………… 154 - Critical approaches to Spenser’s faerie land…………………………………………… 158 - Faeries in early modern culture……………………………………………………………… 166 - Negative connotations of the faerie sign………………………………………………… 176 - The reader as questing knight………………………………………………………………… 187 Chapter Five: Faeries and the Early Modern Stage…………………………………………………… 196 - The new faeries of drama………………………………………………………………………. 200 - Romance on the early modern stage……………………………………………………… 211 - Doll, the faerie queen…………………………………………………………………………….. 217 - The new chivalry and Shakespeare’s Merry Wives........………………………….. 227 Conclusion: After the Faerie Sign…………………………………………………………………………….. 243 Editions……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 259 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 265 4 Introduction: The Faerie Sign The Feywild, also called the Plane of Faerie, is a land of soft lights and wonder, a place of music and death. It is a realm of everlasting twilight, with glittering faerie lights bobbing in the gentle breeze and fat fireflies buzzing through groves and fields. The sky is alight with the faded colors of an ever-setting sun, which never truly sets […]. The Feywild exists in parallel to the Material Plane, an alternate dimension that occupies the same cosmological space. The landscape of the Feywild mirrors the natural world but turns its features into spectacular forms […]. The Feywild is inhabited by sylvan creatures, such as elves, dryads, satyrs, pixies, and sprites, as well as centaurs and magical creatures such as blink dogs, faerie dragons, treants, and unicorns. The darker regions of the plane are home to such malevolent creatures as hags, blights, goblins, ogres, and giants. (The Dungeon Master’s Guide, 2014) 1 As peculiar as it may seem to begin a thesis about faeries in medieval and early modern romance with an example of ‘faerie’ taken from the 2014 edition of the Dungeon Master’s 1 Scot Fitzgerald Gray et al. (eds), Dungeon Master’s Guide (Renton: Wizards of the Coast, 2014), p. 49. 5 Guide (a rulebook intended for players of the fantasy roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons), the above example helps to identify exactly what this thesis means by the term ‘faerie’ and how it is situated within the context of romance. I have chosen to use ‘faerie’ rather than ‘fairy’ throughout this thesis when referring to the faeries found in medieval and early modern sources. My decision to adopt this Spenserian medievalism is part of an attempt to distinguish the faeries of these earlier periods from the whimsical, pixie-like fairies that often dominate twentieth and twenty-first century culture. Primarily, my aim is to draw attention to the unique function that faeries played in the romance