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Articles 301 - 330 of 497

Full-Text Articles in Medieval Studies

Englands Happie Queene: Female Rulers In Early English History, Emily Benes Apr 2019

Englands Happie Queene: Female Rulers In Early English History, Emily Benes

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

This paper examines the historical records and later literature surrounding three early mythic and historical British queens: Albina, mythic founder of Albion; Cordelia, pre-Roman queen regnant in British legend; and Boudica, the British leader of a first-century CE rebellion against the Romans. My work focuses on who these queens were, what powers they were given, and the mythos around them. I examine when they appear in the historical record and when their stories are expanded upon, and how those stories were influenced by the political culture of England through the early seventeenth century. In particular, I examine English attitudes toward …

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Arthur: God And Hero In Avalon, Christopher R. Fee Feb 2019

Arthur: God And Hero In Avalon, Christopher R. Fee

Gettysburg College Faculty Books

For fifteen centuries, legends of King Arthur have inspired generations. In the misty past of a Britain under siege, half-remembered events became shrouded in ancient myth and folklore. The resulting tales were told and retold, until over time Arthur, Camelot, Avalon, the Round Table, the Holy Grail, Excalibur, Lancelot and Guinevere all became instantly recognizable icons. Along the way, Arthur’s life and times were recast in the mould of the hero’s journey: his miraculous conception at Tintagel through the magical intercession of his shaman guide, Merlin; the childhood deed of pulling the Sword from the Stone through which Arthur was …

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Desire, Frustration, And Resolution In The Ending(S) Of Troilus And Criseyde, Kenny Martin Feb 2019

Desire, Frustration, And Resolution In The Ending(S) Of Troilus And Criseyde, Kenny Martin

SMU Journal of Undergraduate Research

This essay analyzes the final stanzas of Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde in order to challenge the critical commonplace that the poem’s ending is fraught, fragmented, unsatisfactory, or ultimately inconclusive. It questions the traditional view that the ending is a conspicuous departure from the poetic mode of the earlier poem, as well as the view that the final stanzas are dominated by an ideological struggle between earthly and divine love. Through a close reading of the final five stanzas of the poem—and with particular attention to their echoes throughout the larger work— the essay seeks to elucidate how Chaucer’s poetics of …

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Early Modern Britain’S Relationship To Its Past: The Historiographical Fortunes Of The Legends Of Brute, Albina, And Scota, Philip M. Robinson-Self Jan 2019

Early Modern Britain’S Relationship To Its Past: The Historiographical Fortunes Of The Legends Of Brute, Albina, And Scota, Philip M. Robinson-Self

Research in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

This volume considers the reception in the early modern period of four popular medieval myths of nationhood—the legends of Brutus, Albina, and Scota—tracing their intertwined literary and historiographical afterlives. The book is particularly timely in its dialogue with current investigations into early modern historiography and the period's relationship to its past, its engagement with pressing issues in identity and gender studies, and its analysis of British national origin stories at a time when modern Britain is considering its own future as a nation.

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Modern Theoretical Approaches To Medieval Translation, Michelle R. Warren Jan 2019

Modern Theoretical Approaches To Medieval Translation, Michelle R. Warren

Dartmouth Scholarship

This chapter explores some of the ways in which modern literary theory opens insights into medieval European translations. Rather than drawing a distinction between theoretical approaches that apply to medieval studies and those that do not, I will explore a few examples that might in turn inspire readers to their own insights. It is my hope that over time readers of this Companion to Medieval Translation will posit many more modern theoretical approaches to medieval translation than can be suggested here. We might even imagine that some of the particularities of medieval European theories of translation could themselves be codified …

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Visionary Pastiche : Hildegard Von Bingen's Reconciliation Of Divine Experience And Representation, Rachel Lynn Gamarra Jan 2019

Visionary Pastiche : Hildegard Von Bingen's Reconciliation Of Divine Experience And Representation, Rachel Lynn Gamarra

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Hildegard von Bingen invents a new rhetorical topos—that of prismatic refraction—which allows her to communicate her divine revelation to others through narrative, artwork, and explication. While her patristic counterparts, Augustine and Jerome, think about rendering the divine only as it relates to their understanding of Scripture, Hildegard exploits rhetoric in order to push the boundaries of human epistemology through grappling with her unique mystical experience. Though Hildegard recognizes that there is a degree of difference between her visions and her representation of them, Hildegard still finds value in language as a communicative tool. Hildegard refracts her divine experience in Scivias, …

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Alchemical Feminism : The Power And Authority Of Women In Shakespeare's Pericles, Kathryn Corah Jan 2019

Alchemical Feminism : The Power And Authority Of Women In Shakespeare's Pericles, Kathryn Corah

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

William Shakespeare and George Wilkin’s romance play, Pericles, Prince of Tyre, is an example of a Renaissance narrative that includes alchemical subtext. There have been many academic articles and dissertations written on this subject; I seek to build upon these previous arguments to expand upon their premises to argue that this alchemical diction and iconography of alchemical emblems allows for Marina and Thaisa to promote the power latent in feminine-coded virtue as it resists against patriarchal violence and reforms a masculinist patriarchal system. The lens I utilized to analyze the text in my exploration of this topic, which I named …

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The Evolution Of The Bible In The English Language, Austin Taylor Jan 2019

The Evolution Of The Bible In The English Language, Austin Taylor

Tenor of Our Times

While the Bible has been accessible for thousands and thousands of centuries, the introduction of an English translation is somewhat of a fairly modern innovation. The translation of the Holy Scriptures into the vernacular was a dangerous and risky endeavor, and the proponents of giving the Bible to the masses gave their literal blood sweat and tears to accomplish their mission. From early translations by Aelfric to the King James Bible, the story of the Bible in English is a saga of determination and faith.

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"The Double Sorwe Of Troilus": Experimentation Of The Chivalric And Tragic Genres In Chaucer And Shakespeare, Rena Patel Jan 2019

"The Double Sorwe Of Troilus": Experimentation Of The Chivalric And Tragic Genres In Chaucer And Shakespeare, Rena Patel

Scripps Senior Theses

The tumulus tale of Troilus and his lover Cressida has left readers intrigued in renditions written by both Geoffrey Chaucer and William Shakespeare due to their subversive nature of the authors’ chosen generic forms. Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde challenges the expectations and limitations of the narrative of the chivalric romance. Shakespeare took the story and turned Troilus and Cressida into one of his famous “problem plays” by challenging his audience’s expectations of the tragic genre. I endeavor to draw attention to the ways in which both Chaucer and Shakespeare use the conventions of the chivalric romance and tragedy to play …

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“Out Of The Mother . . . And Home To The Mother”: Essays On Medieval Literature And Climate Crisis, Rachel Kuhr Smith Jan 2019

“Out Of The Mother . . . And Home To The Mother”: Essays On Medieval Literature And Climate Crisis, Rachel Kuhr Smith

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

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The Lay Folks’ Catechism, Alliterative Verse, And Cursus, Ian Cornelius Dec 2018

The Lay Folks’ Catechism, Alliterative Verse, And Cursus, Ian Cornelius

English: Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Lay Folks’ Catechism is an English rendering of injunctions issued in 1357 by John Thoresby, Archbishop of York, setting forth the elements of Christian belief. Ever since W. W. Skeat’s treatments, the Catechism has been placed in the general orbit of alliterative verse, yet closer identifications have proved elusive. The text is now recorded in both The Index of Middle English Verse and The Index of Middle English Prose; the principal stylistic study proposes that John Gaytryge, the author of the English text, may have been influenced by the system of Latin prose rhythm known as cursus. …

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How The ‘Abortion Miracle’ Motif In Medieval Irish Hagiographies Structured Gender Roles In Relation To Female Reproductivity And Sexual Sin, Lora Lynn Horner Dec 2018

How The ‘Abortion Miracle’ Motif In Medieval Irish Hagiographies Structured Gender Roles In Relation To Female Reproductivity And Sexual Sin, Lora Lynn Horner

Essential Studies UNDergraduate Showcase

Four Irish Saints are accredited to performing abortions, otherwise known as the ‘Abortion Miracle’ motif. These four Saints are St. Brigid of Kildare, Ciarán of Saigir, Áed mac Bricc, and Cainnech of Aghoboe. In each of these four Saints lives they share a similar motif in which they bless a mother’s womb resulting in the mother no longer being pregnant. These ‘abortion miracles’ created structured gender roles in which a masculine figure would partake in the intervention of a female and a female’s reproductivity. The intervention of the Saints would come when the women would start to become visually pregnant …

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Turning Back The Tides: The Anglo-Saxon Vice Of Ofermod In Tolkien's Fall Of Arthur, Colin J. Cutler Oct 2018

Turning Back The Tides: The Anglo-Saxon Vice Of Ofermod In Tolkien's Fall Of Arthur, Colin J. Cutler

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

Tolkien’s Fall of Arthur has at its heart the theme of ofermod, a theme which appears throughout Tolkien’s criticism and creative work. In his essay “The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son,” he argues that the Anglo-Saxon word ofermod in the poem The Battle of Maldon condemns the warband’s leader for an over-reaching pride which places his men in desperate straits. This paper conducts a study of the word and its derivatives in various Anglo-Saxon texts, taking the Microfiche Concordance to Old English as its starting point, and traces Tolkien’s creative use of the theme in both his tales of Middle-earth …

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Covetousness In Book 5 Of Confessio Amantis: A Medieval Precursor To Neoliberalism, Jeffery G. Stoyanoff Sep 2018

Covetousness In Book 5 Of Confessio Amantis: A Medieval Precursor To Neoliberalism, Jeffery G. Stoyanoff

Accessus

In Book 5 of John Gower’s Confessio Amantis, Genius’s extended discussion of Covetousness demonstrates how this subtype of Avarice leads to the ruin of the networks of collectives that make up society. Interestingly, the process by which Covetousness damages the collectives that make up these networks looks a lot like the neoliberalism that has come to dominate a number of governments in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Gower’s tales trace the spread of this sin from the top of society to the bottom; from the highly public to the intimately personal. In all scenarios, Covetousness is a force of …

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“Dyrne Langað”: Secret Longing And Homo-Amory In Beowulf And J.R.R. Tolkien’S The Lord Of The Rings, Christopher Vaccaro Aug 2018

“Dyrne Langað”: Secret Longing And Homo-Amory In Beowulf And J.R.R. Tolkien’S The Lord Of The Rings, Christopher Vaccaro

Journal of Tolkien Research

“‘Dyrne Langað’: Secret Longing and Homo-amory in Beowulf and J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings” investigates the close “homoamorous” relationship between Frodo and Samwise, employing a close reading of select passages from the eighth-century English poem, Beowulf. The argument begins with a clarification of terms. Afterwards, it focuses upon the cruces related to a key scene involving Beowulf’s departure and compares the intensity of the unspoken love Hroðgar has for Beowulf to the love Sam has for Frodo at the Grey Havens. Ultimately, the essay argues for a new way of reading both departure scenes.

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Seasoned Antisemitism: Cannibalism In The Destruction Of Jerusalem, Bailey Ludwig Jul 2018

Seasoned Antisemitism: Cannibalism In The Destruction Of Jerusalem, Bailey Ludwig

English and Creative Writing Summer Fellows

My project examines an episode of maternal cannibalism within the medieval poem The Destruction of Jerusalem. Several variations of the story of the 70 AD Roman siege of Jerusalem that include this particular episode exist; the story even has roots in the bible. I am looking at the poem within this context and noting its differences in order to best determine its intentions. This version, more so than any other I have encountered, eliminates complicating factors, such as the murder of the child or presence of male figures, in order to make its antisemitic message as direct as possible. The …

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Material Culture In The Religious Narratives Of The Old English Exeter Book, Justin J. Larsen Jul 2018

Material Culture In The Religious Narratives Of The Old English Exeter Book, Justin J. Larsen

English Language and Literature ETDs

The term “material culture” represents many different approaches and schools of thought across multiple academic disciplines, but its place in the study of medieval literature is particularly difficult to ascertain. The long tradition of simply using the archaeological record to “fill in” gaps left in the textual historical record does little to expand our understanding of the place that these objects actually occupied in the users’ daily lives, nor does it allow us to make greater connections between the texts, their audiences, and their broader environment. Likewise, the role of the text and its reception has a great deal to …

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“Compassion And Benignytee”: A Reassessment Of The Relationship Between Canacee And The Falcon In Chaucer’S “Squire’S Tale”, Melissa Ridley Elmes Jul 2018

“Compassion And Benignytee”: A Reassessment Of The Relationship Between Canacee And The Falcon In Chaucer’S “Squire’S Tale”, Melissa Ridley Elmes

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

Among its many elements, Chaucer’s “Squire’s Tale” includes an emotionally-charged dialogue between two aristocratic female figures: the human daughter of a king, Canacee, and the wounded falcon she meets in the wood. Scholars have debated the nature of this relationship in interspecial, gendered, and specifically feminist and ecofeminist terms. This essay provides a brief retrospective on some of the most recent scholarship examining their relationship—van Dyke (2005); Kordecki (2011); Crane (2012); and Schotland (2012 and 2015)—leading into a reassessment in two parts: first, that the affinity- and experience-driven bond these female figures develop supports a reading of this scene that …

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Who Is Tom Bombadil?: Interpreting The Light In Frodo Baggins And Tom Bombadil's Role In The Healing Of Traumatic Memory In J.R.R. Tolkien's _Lord Of The Rings_, Jane Beal Phd Jun 2018

Who Is Tom Bombadil?: Interpreting The Light In Frodo Baggins And Tom Bombadil's Role In The Healing Of Traumatic Memory In J.R.R. Tolkien's _Lord Of The Rings_, Jane Beal Phd

Journal of Tolkien Research

In Rivendell, after Frodo has been attacked by Ringwraiths and is healing from the removal of the splinter from a Morgul-blade that had been making its way toward his heart, Gandalf regards Frodo and contemplates a “clear light” that is visible through Frodo to “eyes to see that can.” Samwise Gamgee later sees this light in Frodo when Frodo is resting in Ithilien. The first half of this essay considers questions about this light: how does Frodo become transparent, and why, and what is the nature of the light that fills him? As recourse to Tolkien’s letters shows, the light …

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Misassembled Monsters, Jenn Brown May 2018

Misassembled Monsters, Jenn Brown

Graduate School of Art Theses

This thesis is a narrative of personal and material history. Through my work in painting, sculpture, and installation, I seek to share my story of emotional armoring in an attempt to connect to an audience. In my work, I look to my personal memories of growing up in a small, midwestern town and armoring myself with emotional barriers against its social construct of “normalcy.” Inspired by Medieval suits of armor and the characteristics of Goth culture throughout history, I employ my work to present the stage of a theatrical battleground. Creating each of my pieces is a fight for the …

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Literary Beasts: Use Of Animal Imagery In The Canterbury Tales, Morgan Kentsbeer May 2018

Literary Beasts: Use Of Animal Imagery In The Canterbury Tales, Morgan Kentsbeer

English and Creative Writing Independent Study Projects

Through this paper I am going to argue that animals from the Middle Ages held more worth and were often considered to be more important than their modern counterparts. This gets shown through the three types of ways that animals are used within The Canterbury Tales. First, they are used as allegorical shorthands that imply more meaning with a fewer amount of words; this concept is primarily shown in “The Miller’s Tale” and “The Wife of Bath’s Tale.” Secondly, animals are crafted into characters but still end up being used as tools by other characters or Chaucer himself. For this, …

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Of The Silmarils And The Ring: J. R. R. Tolkien's Fiction And The Importance Of Creation And Art, Michael Hartinger May 2018

Of The Silmarils And The Ring: J. R. R. Tolkien's Fiction And The Importance Of Creation And Art, Michael Hartinger

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

J. R. R. Tolkien embodies the opposing ideals of Enchantment and the Machine in the Silmarils and the One Ring respectively. These created objects oppose each other just as Tolkien’s ideals of art do. Enchantment is art’s ideal, it's purpose is to glorify and enrich the beauty of reality through subcreation. The Silmarils exhibit the delight of making and perceiving beauty. Whereas the Machine is art’s shadowy reflection that utilizes apparatuses or devices rather than personal talent in order to coerce others and reality itself. Overall Tolkien's aesthetic theories reflect many fears surrounding modern attitudes toward weaponizing art. Tolkien supplies …

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The Third Gender And Ælfric's Lives Of Saints, Rhonda L. Mcdaniel Mar 2018

The Third Gender And Ælfric's Lives Of Saints, Rhonda L. Mcdaniel

Richard Rawlinson Center Series

In The Third Gender, McDaniel addresses the idea of the "third gender" in early hagiography and Latin treatises on virginity and then examines Ælfric's treatment of gender in his translations of Latin monastic Lives for his non-monastic audiences. She first investigates patristic ideas about a "third gender" by describing this concept within the theoretical frameworks of monasticism provided by the four Latin Doctors and illustrated in the early Latin Lives of Roman martyrs, revealing the importance of memory in the construction of the monastic "third gender." In the second section McDaniel turns to creating a historical and theological cultural …

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The Gawain-Poet And The Fourteenth-Century English Anticlerical Tradition, Ethan Campbell Feb 2018

The Gawain-Poet And The Fourteenth-Century English Anticlerical Tradition, Ethan Campbell

Research in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

In this fresh reading of the Gawain-poet's Middle English works (Cleanness, Patience, Pearl, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight), Ethan Campbell argues that a central feature of their moral rhetoric is anticlerical critique. Written in an era when clerical corruption was a key concern for polemicists such as Richard FitzRalph and John Wyclif, as well as satirical poets such as John Gower, William Langland, and Geoffrey Chaucer, the Gawain poems feature an explicit attack on hypocritical priests in the opening lines of Cleanness as well as more subtle critiques embedded within depictions of …

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Intersex And The Pardoner’S Body, Kim Zarins Jan 2018

Intersex And The Pardoner’S Body, Kim Zarins

Accessus

Most scholars today have retreated from reading into the Pardoner's body in favor of more figurative readings that emphasize his lack of masculinity, and such lack is then linked to his dejection and despair. Other, more affirming readings center the Pardoner's performance, which allows him to model any sort of body desired through figuration. While such positions dominate and older theories like Beryl Rowland's proposal of an intersex Pardoner are dismissed, in fact, an intersex reading might be a more life-affirming interpretation, not only in terms of reframing the Pardoner's body as manifesting variation as opposed to lack, but also …

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Foreword, Georgiana Donavin, Eve Salisbury Jan 2018

Foreword, Georgiana Donavin, Eve Salisbury

Accessus

The co-editors of Accessus are pleased to present "Intersex and the Pardoner's Body" by Kim Zarins.

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Review Essay: An Edition Of The Archetype Of Piers Plowman B, Ian Cornelius Jan 2018

Review Essay: An Edition Of The Archetype Of Piers Plowman B, Ian Cornelius

English: Faculty Publications and Other Works

The B-Version Archetype, published on-line and in print by the Piers Plowman Electronic Archive (PPEA), deserves close study by all scholars of Langland’s poem. John Burrow, Thorlac Turville-Petre, and their PPEA collaborators have produced an ‘intermittently critical edition’, in approximately the sense called for by Robert Adams in 1992, at the beginning of the PPEA project. On the difficult problem of ‘rolling revision’, Burrow and Turville-Petre adopt an unsatisfactory compromise; they probably also over-estimate the quality of the archetype as a record of Langland’s writing. Yet this edition is the best record now available of the received text of Piers …

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Editors' Note, Brittney Payer, Kristen Shorer Jan 2018

Editors' Note, Brittney Payer, Kristen Shorer

Laurier Undergraduate Journal of the Arts

No abstract provided.

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Introduction, Brittney Payer, Kristen Shorer Jan 2018

Introduction, Brittney Payer, Kristen Shorer

Laurier Undergraduate Journal of the Arts

No abstract provided.

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Fake News And Filter Bubbles: America’S Spiral Of Extremism, Davis Drover Jan 2018

Fake News And Filter Bubbles: America’S Spiral Of Extremism, Davis Drover

Laurier Undergraduate Journal of the Arts

No abstract provided.

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