Exploring Middle English Romance
Section outline
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OBJECTIVES
"Romance" is a genre that, in popular understanding, provides an expression of the dominant secular social and cultural institutions of the High Middle Ages: the ethos of a warrior class bound by imperatives of chivalric conduct, the concept of "courtly" love and courtoisie in general. This is our modern horizon of expectations for the "romance" genre. But what was the horizon of expectations for the medieval readership? How it evolved? We will explore these questions, probing into the complex origins of "romance" and examining a range of texts, from the early birds through the classics of the genre to late reflections. On the way, we will see how the idea of "romance" becomes solidified enough to work as a template and a subtext for other narrative types: hagiography, history etc., as well as providing a firm and fruitful ground for parodies and ironic treatments of various kinds. Inevitably, we will also touch on the issues of the social horizons of the genre as well as those of gender.PRELIMINARY PROGRAMME
1) Introduction: themes, approaches, procedure
2) thematic characteristics of romance; romance in English
- Ywain and Gawain / Chrétien de Troyes: Yvain (selection)
- Sir Perceval of Galles
3) pre- to post-romance: evolution of the genre and late reflections
- Old English Apollonius of Tyre (selection)
- John Gower: eighth book of Confessio Amantis (selection)
- William Shakespeare: Pericles
4) romance and hagiography
- The Liflade ant te Passiun of Seinte Juliene (selection)
5) romance and history
- the story of Havelok in Geoffrey Gaimar: L´Estoire des Engleis (in English)
6) subversions of romance
- Geoffrey Chaucer: "The Merchant's Tale", The Canterbury Tales
7) ConclusionsMATERIAL
Middle English texts listed in the programme will be provided in the original and in Modern English translation. A range of secondary texts, covering the larger issues connected with romance, will be made available in the Moodle.Secondary literature:
- Derek Pearsall, "The Romancing of the Arthurian Story: Chretien de Troyes" in Arthurian Romance: A Short Introduction, Wiley-Blackwell 2003, 20-39 (selection)
- John Finlayson, "Definitions of Middle English Romance", The Chaucer Review 15.1 (1980) 44-62, 15.2 (1980) 168-181 (selection)
- Simon Gaunt, "Romance and Other Genres" in Roberta L. Krueger, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Romance, CUP 2000, 45-59
- John Stevens, "The Images of Romance" in Medieval Romance: Themes and Approaches, Hutchinson 1973, 142-167 (selection)
- Felicity Riddy, "Middle English Romance: Family, Marriage, Intimacy" in Roberta L. Krueger, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Romance, CUP 2000, 235-252
- Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, "Virgin Passions: Romance, Raptus, Ritual" in Saints' Lives and Women's Literary Culture, 1150-1300: Virginity and its Authorizations, OUP 2001, 92-122 (selection)
- Helen Cooper, "When Romance Comes True" in Neil Cartlidge, ed., Boundaries in Medieval Romance, Boydell & Brewer 2008, 13-28
- Lee Patterson, "Chaucerian Commerce: Bourgeois Ideology and Poetic Exchange in the Merchant’s and Shipman’s Tales" in Chaucer and the Subject of History, University of Wisconsin Press 1991, 322-349 (selection)
PROCEDURE AND ASSESSMENT
Students are expected to give one presentation of 10-15 minutes (ideally complemented with a 1 page handout summarizing the main points) and submit a paper of 1,000 words for a credit. An essay of 5,000 words should be submitted as a graded paper. Active participation is of the essence.The seminar will combine Moodle forum with class sessions.
The forum is designed to serve as a preparation for the class discussion. Students will take turns introducing the respective texts to their colleagues through a brief personalized summary – describing the interpretative problems they have encountered in reading. There will also be questions for discussion posted in the forum, which the students should consider and respond to briefly (picking one problem and commenting on it in the space of 1-2 sentences). Finally, students are encouraged to add their own questions to the forum.
The class session will expand on this initial embryonic debate, allowing all participants to interrogate, compare and combine their individual insights and conclusions.
Further details will be discussed during the first introductory session. -
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By many scholars Chrétien is recognized as the inventor of Arthurian romance and Yvain is in many ways typical of his corpus. Some 150 years later Yvain was rendered into Middle English as Iwaine and Gawaine.
We will use a selection of corresponding passages from the French and the Middle English version to explore the core concerns of romance in general, as well as the differences in approach between Chrétien and his English "translator" (to a large extent representative of the distinction between "classical" French and English romance in general). The selected passages comprise about a quarter of the entire text.- I suggest you start with the plot summary to form a general idea of "what goes on and what's at stake" in the tale as a whole.
- for the forum: I'd like to ask you to read the first part of the English material - the build-up towards the actual Yvain story.
You can take this as an account of a "generic knightly adventure", a foil to what happens later. Try to list your general impressions as regards dominant themes, motifs, the ways the events are presented... Pick one feature you find typical and one that you found surprising (if any) for the forum, keep track of the rest for the class session. - combined: I'd like to ask you to compare the passages highlighted in blue in the English material with the corresponding passages in Chrétien.
I give you two versions of translation, poetic and prosaic, to cater for diverse tastes ;-)
session only:
1) the first, introductory passage - on Arthur, his knights, his time etc.: do the two versions emphasise the same things? If not, what's the respective emphasis in each?
forum and session:
2) the central passage - Yvain coming to terms with Alundine;
I suppose we will get here in the realm of value judgment: in your reading, is what the English version performs a streamlining or a reduction? Be prepared to discuss the reasons for your verdict (session).
How do the two versions (French/English) read? Try to describe what you value and/or dislike about either. Considering their differences, what effect or goal are they, in your opinion, respectively after? Pick one feature for the forum, keep track of the rest for the class session.
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Here you will gain a general idea of the plot of the romance. The passages highlighted in blue are those presented in full in the files to be discussed in detail.
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selected passages in Middle English, with glosses and prosaic Modern English translation
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poetic translation of the corresponding passages from Chrétien's romance
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prosaic translation of the corresponding passages from Chrétien's romance
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poetic translation of the corresponding passages from Chrétien's romance
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prosaic translation of the corresponding passages from Chrétien's romance
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In this block of sessions we will explore a new romance mode - the type of narrative taken over from late Greek novel. This will lead to a new exploration of the constituent features of romance.
We will also see how the narrative is retold before, in and after the period in which the chivalric romance, explored so far, got constituted, and how the idea of "what is romance" evolves in time.The first session will be devoted to a text that has been repeatedly labelled as the first romance in English, translated from a Latin original way before the concepts of chivalry and courtoisie started to consolidate: the Old English Apollonius of Tyre.
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You may wish to compare this narrative, a very popular one in the High Middle Ages, with Apollonius as regards leading concerns, themes etc.
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The various versions of and references to the Havelok story form a fascinating conglomerate. The earliest account is found in Gaimar's L'estoire des Engleis, our core text and the first history to be written in Anglo-Norman verse (around 1140, the verse form being that of the octosyllabic couplet, which became the "default" form of French romance). There it opens the second part of the Estoire, the only extant today, focused on the history of Anglo-Saxon and Norman England. The first part, focused on history of the Britons, had been pushed into obscurity by Wace's Roman de Brut.
Subsequently, we find the story included in several chronicles and elaborated in an Anglo-Norman and a Middle English romance version (all represented in the additional materials). In addition, there is the local Grimsby and Lincoln tradition. Though the basic plot remains the same in all versions (a pair of dispossessed heirs eventually coming into their own), the individual versions differ in a number of details as well as in the names of most of the characters.
