IMC 2005: Sessions

Session 517: Systems and Subversion: Patterns of Ageing in Medieval Textual Culture

Tuesday 12 July 2005, 09.00-10.30

Sponsor:	Hilton Shepherd Postgraduate Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Birmingham
Organiser:	Josephine E. Mayer, Department of English, University of Birmingham
Moderator/Chair:	Wendy Scase, Department of English, University of Birmingham
Paper 517-a	'Byð se ealda man ceald and snoflig': Stereotypes and Subversions of the Life-Cycle in Old English (Language: English) Philippa J. Semper, Department of English, University of Birmingham Index terms: Language and Literature - Old English, Manuscripts and Palaeography
Paper 517-b	Age and Ageing in Deguileville and Langland (Language: English) Josephine E. Mayer, Department of English, University of Birmingham Index terms: Language and Literature - Middle English, Language and Literature - French or Occitan
Paper 517-c	'Thise olde folk kan muchel thyng': Contagion versus Knowledge in Chaucer's Depiction of Old Age (Language: English) Brenda Carter, Department of English, University of Birmingham Index terms: Language and Literature - Middle English, Medicine, Political Thought
Abstract	This panel will interrogate the deployment and disruption of various schemes of ageing in selected medieval texts. Philippa Semper will draw on verbal and visual examples to consider the creation and subversion of such schemes in Anglo-Saxon textual culture; Josephine Mayer will use Deguileville’s systematic treatment of age and ageing as a lens through which to examine Langland’s production of a text that undermines such systems even as it utilises them, and Brenda Carter will draw on medical and political texts to explore ways in which Chaucer underwrites the merits and demerits of old age and creates an apparently problematic discourse of youth and age.