Medieval Studies Commons^™

“The Bedroom And The Barnyard: Zoomorphic Lust Through Territory, Procedure, And Shelter In ‘The Miller’S Tale’” & Haunchebones, Danielle N. Byington

Undergraduate Honors Theses

“The Bedroom and the Barnyard: Zoomorphic Lust Through Territory, Procedure, and Shelter in ‘The Miller’s Tale’” is an academic endeavor that takes Chaucer’s zoomorphic metaphors and similes and analyzes them in a sense that reveals the chaos of what is human and what is animal tendency. The academic work is expressed in the adjunct creative project, Haunchebones, a 10-minute drama that echoes the tale and its zoomorphic influences, while presenting the content in a stylized play influenced by Theatre of the Absurd and artwork from the medieval and early renaissance period.

Magic And Femininity As Power In Medieval Literature, Anna Mcgill

Undergraduate Honors Theses

It is undeniable that literature reflects much about the society that produces it. The give-and-take relationship between a society and its literature is especially interesting when medieval texts are considered. Because most medieval plots and characters are variants of existing stories, the ways that the portrayals change has the potential to reveal much about the differences between medieval societies separated by distance and time. Changes to the treatment of these recurring characters and their stories can reveal how the attitudes of medieval society changed over time. Perceptions of magic and attitudes toward its female practitioners, both real and fictional, changed …

"So Vexed Me The Þouȝtful Maladie": Public Presentation Of The Private Self In Hoccleve's My Compleinte And The Conpleynte Paramont, Lauren M. Silverio

Honors Scholar Theses

The scholarship surrounding the life and work of Thomas Hoccleve is relatively young and lean compared to the tomes of knowledge that have been circulated about the slightly older and vastly more popular Geoffrey Chaucer. Up until the second half of the 20th century, Hoccleve came through history with the unfortunate moniker of the "lesser Chaucer." What this insult neglects, however, is that Hoccleve was more than just a lowly clerk who spent his days admiring and emulating the so-called Father of English Literature. Thomas Hoccleve deserves recognition for conceiving and creating works that are impressive both in their form …

The Anti-Crusade Voice Of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Malek Jamal Zuraikat

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study reads some Middle English poetry in terms of crusading, and it argues that the most prominent English poets, namely Geoffrey Chaucer, William Langland, and John Gower, were against the later crusades regardless of their target. However, since the anti-crusade voice of Gower and Langland has been discussed by many other scholars, this study focuses on Chaucer's poems and their implicit opposition of crusading. I argue that despite Chaucer's apparent neutrality to crusading as well as other sociopolitical and cultural matters of England, his poetry can hardly be read but as an indirect critique of war in general and …

The Rhetoric Of Exile In The Preaching And Teaching Of The Anglo-Saxon Church: Glimpses Of The Cultural Ideology In Old English Homilies, Yi-Chin Huang

The Hilltop Review

Abstract.

This article explores how the early medieval vernacular homiletic discourse produced in Anglo-Saxon England strategically employs the rhetoric exile, a theme whose significance is also articulated widely in Old English poetry. As words denoting such similar ideas as exile, banishment, exclusion, casting/driving out, etc., recur significantly in the homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church, including the homilies of Ælfric, Wulfstan, and the Blickling and Vercelli Codices, I propose an analysis of the instances in which the rhetoric about exile is used in preaching and theology in order to reveal not only the Church authors/teachers’ ability and effort to translate Latin …

Introduction To Innovative Approaches To Teaching Chaucer, Alison (Ganze) Langdon, David Sprunger

English Faculty Publications

Many a medievalist has been seduced by Chaucer. Perhaps it’s the totality of Chaucer’s enduring characters, memorable tales, elusive narrator, and fragmented whole that keeps us coming back. We are fascinated and delighted, too, by his linguistic play and the lyrical cadence of Middle English. Chaucer may have led us to graduate study in the first place and remains a treat that organizes our pedagogical lives. For some who teach in smaller programs or two-year colleges, Chaucer’s canonical status may provide the only guaranteed place for medieval texts in the curriculum and thus represents one small chance to share our …

Hamlet And Amleth, Princes Of Denmark: Shakespeare And Saxo Grammaticus As Historians And Kingly Actions In The Hamlet/Amleth Narrative, Megan Arnott

The Hilltop Review

Shakespeare played a decisive role in creating a Middle Ages for the generations that came after him. The two tetralogies, which include Richard II, Henry IV Part 1 and Part 2, Henry V, Henry VI Part 1-3 and Richard III, comprise the body of work that is commonly studied for medievalisms, and in these plays Shakespeare’s interpretation of the past demonstrates nation building, ‘Englishness,’ and a concern about the nature of power. A different kind of engagement with the medieval past is occurring in Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, though Hamlet is no less concerned with …

An Analysis Of The Aristocratic Material Culture Described In The Old English Epic Beowulf, Rachel Munson

Honors Capstones

Capstone submitted as a graduation requirement for the BSU Honors Program.

The Ethics Of Mourning: The Role Of Material Culture And Public Politics In The 'Book Of The Duchess' And The 'Pearl' Poem, Tarren Andrews

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This project is a socio-historic analysis of two late 14^th century dream visions: Chaucer’s Book of the Duchess and the Pearl poem. Utilizing Robert Pogue Harrison’s concept of objectifying grief through ritualized communal mourning, this thesis examines the ways in which mourning literature functioned as consolatory device, and a form of public performance for the powerful patrons who commissioned the pieces. By engaging with pre-existing communities of grief, material culture, and courtly discourse these poems perform the work of mourning while simultaneously enacting modes of public performativity that stress the ethics of grieving, and suggest that, for royal patrons, …

The Queer And The Bodily: Explorations Of Power In Women's Visionary Writing In The Book Of Margery Kempe 2014, Jayne Emerson Stacconi

Master's Theses

The provocative Book of Margery Kempe is a seminal text in the history of female authorship. Claiming to be the first written autobiography, The Book serves as a literary representation of womanhood during the late fourteenth to the fifteenth centuries when Margery was writing, and also speaks to circulating medieval discourses of religion, pilgrimage, and sexuality. Participating in medieval women’s visionary writing as a genre, Margery’s visionary power is a tool by which she is able to emancipate herself from the limiting roles of wife and mother. Additionally, by working within the conventions of visionary writing, Margery is able to …

Student-Centered, Interactive Teaching Of The Anglo-Saxon Cult Of The Cross, Christopher R. Fee

English Faculty Publications

Although most Anglo-Saxonists deal with Old English texts and contexts as a matter of course in our research agendas, many of us teach relatively few specialized courses focused on our areas of expertise to highly-trained students; thus, many Old English texts and objects which are commonplace in our research lives can seem arcane and esoteric to a great many of our students. This article proposes to confront this gap, to suggest some ways of teaching a few potentially obscure texts and artifacts to undergrads, to offer some guidance about uses of technology in this endeavor, and to help fellow teachers …

Apocalyptic Mentalities In Late-Medieval England, Steven A. Hackbarth

Dissertations (1934 -)

Apocalypticism, defined by expectation of an imminent End, assumes many forms and proves influential in the second half of the Fourteenth Century in England. Throughout my study, I demonstrate that a rich apocalyptic environment emerges in works of the period, including those of Chaucer, Gower, Langland, and the Pearl-poet. In this period, apocalypticism has provided explanations for plague, narratives that make evil more vivid, and arguments for urgent action. It gives contemporary phenomena special meaning. My study is organized around conspicuous centers of meaning that work reciprocally with the apocalyptic, simultaneously defining the End and defined by it. First, I …

Welsh Manipulations Of The Matter Of Britain, Timothy J. Nelson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

"Welsh Manipulations of the Matter of Britain" examines the textual relationships between Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia regum Britanniae and the Welsh Brut y Brenhinedd in the Cotton Cleopatra manuscript. This thesis initially provides an overview of the existing scholarship surrounding the Welsh translations of Geoffrey's Historia with a specific focus on the Cotton Cleopatra Brut. The textual examination of the two histories begins with an extended commentary on the general textual variations between the two texts before concentrating on the specific changes that were made in the Cotton Cleopatra to reflect the adapter's pro-Welsh nationalistic and political biases. The general …

Social Healing In Gower's Visio Angliae, Kara Mcshane

English and Creative Writing Faculty Publications

I argue that Gower uses metaphorical images common from vernacular romance—particularly the image of the rudderless ship—to help himself and his readers process the upheaval of the Great Rising. As a healing narrative, the Visio is meant as a public, political text that can begin healing at both personal and communal levels. The Visio is reforming, but it is not radical. In Gower’s worldview, social reform must begin with the highest levels of society and move downward.

Introduction: John Gower's Twenty-First Century Appeal, Kara Mcshane, R. F. Yeager

English and Creative Writing Faculty Publications

This is the introductory essay to a special issue of the South Atlantic Review focusing on John Gower. Guest editor for this issue is Kara L. McShane with the assistance of R. F. Yeager.

Situating Digital Archives, Michelle R. Warren

Dartmouth Scholarship

This essay is the introduction to an essay collection about the Middle English Prose Brut manuscript purchased by Dartmouth College in 2006. I consider how the competing pressures of access and preservation condition scholarship in medieval studies. I suggest several analogies between the digital humanities in general, digital philology in medieval studies, and the historical practices of medieval writers: hacking, dark archive, and prosthesis.

The Dartmouth Brut: Conservation, Authenticity, Dissemination, Deborah Howe, Michelle R. Warren

Dartmouth Scholarship

This essay describes the conservation process of the Dartmouth Brut manuscript: Dartmouth College, Rauner Special Collections Library, MS 003183. The format alternates between the observations and descriptions of the conservator, Deborah Howe, and those of medievalists Michelle Warren. The essay includes photos of Deborah's process in making a fragile fifteenth-century manuscript useable in the twenty-first century.

Questing The Beast: From Malory To Milton, Malorie A. Sponseller

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

The Questing Beast is a Medieval creature that has received little scholarly attention. Because of her labile nature, she is difficult to identify and therefore challenging to study. When previously analyzed, she has been considered only in her Medieval context. By comparing the Questing Beast from Perlesvaus, the Post-Vulgate Cycle, and the Prose Tristan, four identifying characteristics can be found: she is symbolic, she is multi-formed, she is a mother that gives birth, and she produces a barking noise most often made by her unborn young. Of these four signs, the last is the most prevalent and identifiable. …

Civility And Gower's "Visio Anglie", Lynn Arner

Accessus

Deploying conventions from medieval courtesy manuals, Gower’s Visio Anglie assigned varied degrees of authority to Englishmen and women at the bodily level, a system of signification in which food, physical appearances, and overall comportment were key elements. Echoing courtesy manuals, the Visio constructed corporal marks of distinction, interpreted physical signifiers as indices of people’s inner character and value, and classified bodies into social groups accordingly. Offering understandings of civility that began with codes of bodily conduct and that expanded to claims about the cosmos, the Visio’s corporal regulatory system promoted particular understandings of citizenship and governance that sought to …

Old English Ecologies: Environmental Readings Of Anglo-Saxon Texts And Culture, Ilse Schweitzer Vandonkelaar

Dissertations

Conventionally, scholars have viewed representations of the natural world in Anglo-Saxon (Old English) literature as peripheral, static, or largely symbolic: a “backdrop” before which the events of human and divine history unfold. In “Old English Ecologies,” I apply the relatively new critical perspectives of ecocriticism and placebased study to the Anglo-Saxon canon to reveal the depth and changeability in these literary landscapes. Overall, this interdisciplinary study of Anglo-Saxon texts brings together literary and environmental sources and modes of inquiry to explore the place of humans (and non-humans) within the natural environments of Anglo-Saxon England, as well as the ways in …

Appendix A To Feeling Like Saints: Lollard Writings After Wyclif, Fiona Somerset

Supplementary Material for Published Books

Appendix A: Brief Descriptions of Frequently Cited Manuscripts

These descriptions provide a list of contents for selected manuscripts frequently cited in Feeling Like Saints: Lollard Writings after Wyclif (Cornell U. P., 2014). I have worked extensively with each of these manuscripts, but I also rely on previous descriptions as cited within. Abbreviations used are those listed in the table of abbreviations in the published book.

Appendix B To Feeling Like Saints: Lollard Writings After Wyclif, Fiona Somerset

Supplementary Material for Published Books

Appendix B: The Pastoral Syllabus of SS74 and a Detailed Summary of the Sermons

This appendix summarizes the contents of each sermon in the sermon cycle that occupies the bulk of Cambridge, Sidney Sussex College MS 74. Details are given of the epistle lection, the sermon from the English Wycliffite Sermons included as a protheme, the content of the epistle sermon, and the pastoral teaching provided. Abbreviations used are those in the table of abbreviations in Feeling Like Saints: Lollard Writings after Wyclif (Cornell, 2014).

Weaver Of Allegory: John Bunyan's Use Of The Medieval Theme Of Vice And Virtue As Devotional Writer And Social Critic In The Holy War, David Madsen

Masters Theses

The literary artistry of Bunyan's The Holy War is overshadowed by the longstanding popularity of his greatest-known work The Pilgrim's Progress. However, The Holy War displays an impressive intricately-woven story with several complex strands of allegorical meaning. One such strand is its emphasis on the theme of virtue and vice in literature of the Middle Ages. In The Holy War, Bunyan applies this thematic thread from the Medieval Psychomachia and morality plays to his allegory in seventeenth-century Restoration England. The present research begins with an exploration of allegory as story with emphasis on Bunyan's role as storyteller in general and …

Magistra Doctissima: Essays In Honor Of Bonnie Wheeler, Dorsey Armstrong, Ann W. Astell, Howell Chickering

Festschriften, Occasional Papers, and Lectures

The editors of this volume use its title to honor Bonnie Wheeler for her many scholarly achievements and to celebrate her wide-ranging contributions to medieval studies in the United States. There are sections on Old and Middle English Literature, Arthuriana Then and Now, Joan of Arc Then and Now, Nuns and Spirituality, and Royal Women. As the editors note in the introduction, the volume "confirms Bonnie's commitment to the multidisciplinary study of the Middle Ages" and affirms her conviction "that the medieval and the modern are best viewed not as 'the past' and 'the present' but as interpenetrative categories."

The Medieval Dark Horse: Challenge And Reward In The Middle English Lyric, Andrew S. Marvin

English Faculty Publications

“The Medieval Dark Horse: Challenge and Reward in the Middle English Lyric” explores the genre’s history and literary merits while addressing the question of why this valuable and extensive body of literature has largely gone untapped by scholars.

The introductory sections detail the historical and modern contexts of the lyric, including the state of scholarship, manuscripts, editions, dating issues, purpose, audience, types of lyrics, and themes. This background informs a discussion of the genre’s difficulties and offers solutions with which to counter them. Close readings of eight poems are included to exemplify the lyric’s thematic range, stylistic diversity, and literary …

Don't Take Orpheus Without The Lyre: The Intricacies Of Using Pagan Myths For Christian Purposes In The Divine Comedy And Paradise Lost, Rebekah J. Waltmann

Masters Theses

Because of their universal and artistic nature, the classical myths lend themselves well to use in literature, especially poetry. When used properly, as by Dante and Milton, the myths have the ability to enhance the work; when used poorly, they become gaudy ornamentation. It was, and is, this ability to enhance both the artistry and function of literature that pulled so many poets to the myths, despite the difficulties that could arise when the pagan myths did not quite match the Christian setting. My purpose in this thesis is not to explicate every use of myth within The Divine Comedy …

Desert Islands: Europe's Atlantic Archipelago As Ascetic Landscape, Paul Siewers

Faculty Contributions to Books

A focus on early literatures around the Irish Sea as both archipelagic and ascetic in their engagement of the environment.

Green Worlds And Ecosemiotics, Paul Siewers

Faculty Conference Papers and Presentations

"Overlay landscapes" in Early Insular literatures, and how they connect early medieval cosmology with current-day ecosemiotics..

Singing The Story: Narrative Voice And The Old English Scop, Lisa M. Horton

The Hilltop Review

The picture of Anglo-Saxon society that we receive through its literature is a direct result of the life of the Old English scop. His personality and experiences filter into the stories that he tells and provide nuanced interpretations of both histories and legends, while his position within Anglo-Saxon society allows him direct access to the great events and persons of his time. As an active participant in his society, at the feet or even at the right hand of a king, he wields profound influence; as an observer and commentator on his society, he records and interprets both reality and …

Ecopoetics And The Origins Of English Literature, Paul Siewers

Faculty Contributions to Books

An ecocritical survey of early English literature, focusing on the "green world" trope.