Medieval Studies Commons^™

Survey Of Medieval Literature On Maternal Mortality, Postpartum Care, And Birth Trauma In Relation To The Crisis In Arkansas, Paige Q. Thompson

English Undergraduate Honors Theses

When the general public thinks of childbirth in the Middle Ages, they think of death and danger. However, Arkansas has the highest maternal mortality rate in the entire United States, and many of those deaths are preventable. There have been previous analyses on different medieval texts as well as research into modern Arkansas, but none have made a direct connection between the two subjects. By analyzing medieval literature to understand cultural norms surrounding childbirth and postpartum care, patterns can be traced to modern Arkansas, where needless deaths are still prevalent. Ultimately, medieval texts demonstrate cultural attitudes surrounding blame toward women …

The Silent Identity: Asexuality, Aromanticism, And Convention In Le Roman De Silence And The Story Of Silence, Anita Farrell

English and Creative Writing Summer Fellows

Le Roman de Silence is a 13th-century French romance about Silence, a woman raised as a man to protect their family’s inheritance. Heldris of Cornwall, the author, develops a rich inner world to help the audience connect with Silence, allowing them to experiment with gendered, sexual, and romantic boundaries. This romance intrigues modern scholars, especially feminist and queer researchers due to narrative pressure on conventions like gender and sex. In 2020, Alex Myers, a transgender author, updates Silence’s tale in The Story of Silence, where Silence explores their identity in greater detail. Silence eventually identifies themselves as non-binary and …

Otherworldly But Not The Otherworld: Tolkien’S Adaptation Of Medieval Faerie And Fairies Into A Sub-Creative Elvendom, Elliott Thomas Collins

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

Through a comparative analysis of Lothlorien and the medieval stories of Lanval and Sir Orfeo, this article attempts to shed some light on how the inherently pessimistic and recursive nature of Tolkien's sub-creation affects his adaptation of medieval Faerie into a sub-creative elvendom born of the creative instincts of the elves. In doing so, the article also questions Tolkien's adherence to parameters of Faerie and characteristics of elves as laid out in OFS.

Evolving Identity: Hellenistic Greece Vs. Arthurian Legend, Irene A. Bougatsos

Publications and Research

This paper for a capstone class delves into two iconic figures from contrasting time periods. While Sir Gawain and Alexander the Great are two literary figures separated by several centuries, the theme of identity is present in the stories of The Greek Alexander Romance and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. How identity fluctuates is what this paper strives to answer.

Not Your Average Rose: Cultural Inversion In Pizan’S 'City Of Ladies', Alex Donley

Montview Journal of Research & Scholarship

This research addresses Le Livre de la Cité des Dames—translated into English as The Book of the City of Ladies—as an outstanding work of proto-feminist literature from 1405. It is written by a woman, in defense of women. Christine de Pizan plays the central character in her own work, in which she combats misogyny with a revised account of history. She battles prevalent ideals of courtly love and gender inequality as things that are not merely repulsive or immoral, but wholly heretical. Rather than focusing on historical accuracy, de Pizan uses the literary power of her narrative to …

Boethian Variations: Musical Thought In Sir Orfeo, Troilus And Criseyde, And Robert Henryson’S Orpheus And Eurydice, Joshua T. Parks

Masters Theses

This study approaches three poems from the late medieval British Isles—the Middle English Breton lay Sir Orfeo, Geoffrey Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde, and Robert Henryson’s Orpheus and Eurydice—through the lens of medieval music theory. The most important authority for medieval music theorists was the late antique philosopher Boethius, who held to a Neoplatonic philosophy of music that valued reason, theory, and contemplation of the music of the spheres. Later medieval theorists cited Boethius extensively while also adapting his thought to suit their own purposes. In particular, the early fourteenth-century French theorist Johannes de Grocheio, influenced by Aristotle, departed …

Recovered Images: Medieval Echoes In C. S. Lewis’S Space Trilogy, Nathan Earl Houston Fayard

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

C. S. Lewis has begun to garner more scholarly attention in the last few decades, but his first novels, his science fiction or Space trilogy, continue to be largely ignored by academia. Yet, these three novels are deserving of more serious study, as they are pioneering works of literary science fiction, and even more surprisingly, of literary medievalism. Though long derided as mere reactionary attacks on Modernism and science, when properly understood, these strange and wonderful tales actually reveal the complexity and nuance of Lewis’s response to his times. In them, the Inkling author creates a unique combination of the …

“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.

The Corporeality Of Clothing In Medieval Literature: Cognition, Kinesis, And The Sacred, Sarah Brazil

Early Drama, Art, and Music

Every known society wears some form of clothing. It is central to how we experience our bodies and how we understand the sociocultural dimensions of our embodiment. It is also central to how we understand works of literature. In this innovative study, Brazil demonstrates how medieval writers use clothing to direct readers’ and spectators’ awareness to forms of embodiment. Offering insights into how poetic works, plays, and devotional treatises target readers’ kinesic intelligence—their ability to understand movements and gestures—Brazil demonstrates the theological implications of clothing, often evinced by how garments limit or facilitate the movements and postures of bodies in …

Dante And The “Dead White Dude” Dilemma: Exploring The Complexities Of Diversity And Controversy In Medieval Literature, Grace Therrell

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Recently, one of the goals on the English discipline has been diversification. Students and scholars alike call for program requirements that are inclusive instead of imperialistic. They want to read texts written by non-white, non-male authors and to hear voices that are less represented in literature. In short, they want to eliminate the focus on literature written by the “dead white dude.” While literature programs should be more diversified, it is still possible to hear from marginalized voices and discuss current controversial issues through older canonical texts. Dante Alighieri does this exceptionally well in his Divine Comedy as he tends …

Las Letras De Fernando De Pulgar, Nueva Edición, Estudio Preliminar Y Notas, Ana-Maria Zaharescu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis intends to be a new edition of a text widely read in its time judging by the number of manuscripts and editions that circulated between the last quarter of the 15th century and the next. They are epistles directed to historical personalities of the end of the 15th century who played an important role in the politics and in the society of Fernando de Pulgar’s time. Along with political and diplomatic matters, the Letters express author’s personal feelings and reactions to the political or social situation of the fifteenth century Castile.

A new edition of Fernando de Pulgar's …

Remnants Of The Past: Grendel’S Mother, Wealhtheow, And The Pagan Past, Sarah Kinkade

Senior Theses

"Within medieval studies, Beowulf is, by far, one of the most well-known and analyzed texts. While much scholarship focuses on subjects such as lexical analysis, Beowulf’s actions, the symbolism of Grendel, women’s roles and expectations, medieval politics, and many other notable topics, a less-popular, but significant theme within Beowulf is the fluctuating state of religion throughout Anglo-Saxon history. Rather than depicting a binary system between Christianity and paganism, the poem acknowledges the ongoing conversion process, which presented overlaps of both beliefs. The result of this process was folklore and this ambiguous system plays a major role throughout Beowulf. However, this …

There And Back Again: The Epic Hero's Journey Through Gift-Giving, Emily J. Tomusko

The Downtown Review: An Interdisciplinary Journal Written and Peer-Reviewed by Mandel Honors College Students at Cleveland State University

Both The Hobbit and Beowulf have a place in the hearts of many readers across the world. In this article, we will discuss the concept of Anglo-Saxon gift-giving and the importance it played in the culture. This cultural norm was present in multiple forms of medieval literature, particularly in the epic poem mentioned above, Beowulf. I believe that this precedent of gift-giving was transmitted to the citizens of the culture as a form of “medieval propaganda” that encouraged the people to abide by said cultural norm, and expressed the punishment of failing to follow through. Furthermore, I believe that …

"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 …

Insensate Oysters And Our Nonconsensual Existence, Karl Steel

Publications and Research

From the classical era through to the French Enlightenment, oysters were considered the hingepoint between plants and animals. Unable to move, possessing only the sense of sense itself, they were the very figure of bare life. Rather than claiming that oysters should be granted "agency," as the new materialist habit would be, I argue that humans should instead "oystermorphize" themselves, to recognize that our agency is not the dominant condition of our being.

How The Axe Falls: A Retrospective On Thirty-Five Years Of Sir Gawain And The Green Knight Performance, Linda Marie Zaerr

Accessus

This retrospective represents a new approach to using historical performance as a tool for understanding medieval narrative performance. The core of the article traces how an individual performer’s interaction with a stable medieval text both indicates directions medieval performers may have taken and suggests the limitations imposed by modern performance conventions. The discussion touches on issues of adaptation and translation, variation in troupe composition and audience, expectations of modern audiences, impact of costume choices, and limitations of audio and video recordings as documentation of live performance. Juxtaposing eight performances of a single passage clarifies how performance can transform a text, …

Mythology In The Middle Ages: Heroic Tales Of Monsters, Magic, And Might, Christopher R. Fee

Gettysburg College Faculty Books

Myths of gods, legends of battles, and folktales of magic abound in the heroic narratives of the Middle Ages. Mythology in the Middle Ages: Heroic Tales of Monsters, Magic, and Might describes how Medieval heroes were developed from a variety of source materials: Early pagan gods become euhemerized through a Christian lens, and an older epic heroic sensibility was exchanged for a Christian typological and figural representation of saints. Most startlingly, the faces of Christian martyrs were refracted through a heroic lens in the battles between Christian standard-bearers and their opponents, who were at times explicitly described in demonic terms. …

Famous Infidelity: Geoffrey Chaucer's Criseyde And Robert Henryson's Cresseid, Erin R. Johnson

Honors Capstones

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