Rhiannon Purdie & Michael Cichon 
Medieval Romance, Medieval Contexts [PDF ebook] 

The popular genre of medieval romance explored in its physical, geographical, and literary contexts.


The essays in this volume take a representative selection of English and Scottish romances from the medieval period and explore some of their medieval contexts, deepening our understanding not only of the romances concerned but also of the specific medieval contexts that produced or influenced them. The contexts explored here include traditional literary features such as genre and rhetorical technique and literary-cultural questions of authorship, transmission and readership; but they also extend to such broader intellectual and social contexts as medieval understandings of geography, the physiology of swooning, or the efficacy of baptism. A framing context for the volume is provided by Derek Pearsall’s prefatory essay, in which he revisits his seminal 1965 article on the development of Middle English romance.


Rhiannon Purdie is Senior Lecturer in English, University of St Andrews; Michael Cichon is Associate Professor of English at St Thomas More College in the University of Saskatchewan.


Contributors: Derek Pearsall, Nancy Mason Bradbury, Michael Cichon, Nicholas Perkins, Marianne Ailes, John A. Geck, Phillipa Hardman, Siobhain Bly Calkin, Judith Weiss, Robert Rouse, Yin Liu, Emily Wingfield, Rosalind Field

Innehållsförteckning

Introduction: Romance and its Medieval Contexts – Rhiannon Purdie and Michael Cichon

The Pleasure of Popular Romance: A Prefatory Essay – Derek Pearsall

Representations of Peasant Speech: Some Literary and Social Contexts for
The Taill of Rauf Coilyear – Nancy Mason Bradbury

’As ye have brewd, so shal ye drink’: the Proverbial Context of
Eger and Grime – Michael Cichon

Ekphrasis and Narrative in
Emaré and
Sir Eglamour of Artois – Nicholas Perkins

What’s in a name? Anglo-Norman Romances or
Chansons de geste? – Marianne Ailes

’For Goddes love, sir, mercy!’: Recontextualising the Modern Critical Text of
Floris and Blancheflor – John A. Geck

Roland in England: Contextualising the Middle English
Song of Roland – Phillipa Hardman

Romance Baptisms and Theological Contexts in
The King of Tars and
Sir Ferumbras – Siobhain Bly Calkin

Modern and Medieval Views on Swooning: the Literary and Medical Contexts of Fainting in Romance – Judith Weiss

Walking [between] the Lines: Romance as Itinerary/Map – Robert Rouse

Romances of Continuity in the English Rous Roll – Yin Liu

’Ex libris domini Duncani Campbell de Glenwrquhay/miles’:
The Buik of King Alexander the Conquerour in the household of Sir Duncan Campbell, seventh laird of Glenorchy – Emily Wingfield

’Pur les francs homes amender’: Clerical Authors and the Thirteenth-Century Context of Historical Romance – Rosalind Field

Om författaren

ROBERT ROUSE Associate Professor, Department of English at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada.