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IMC 2014: Sessions

Session 125: Sex, Rape, and Empire in Medieval Romance Narrative from Byzantium to England

Monday 7 July 2014, 11.15-12.45

Moderator/Chair:Raluca Radulescu, School of English, Bangor University
Paper 125-a'The fals god dude al his wille': Patterns of Sexual Violence in the Conception Narratives of Middle English Literary Emperors
(Language: English)
Emma Osborne, Faculty of History, University of Cambridge
Index terms: Gender Studies, Language and Literature - Middle English, Manuscripts and Palaeography, Women's Studies
Paper 125-bHybrid Power: Eros the Emperor in the Tale of Livistros and Rodamne
(Language: English)
Andria Andreou, Department of Byzantine & Modern Greek Studies, University of Cyprus, Nicosia
Index terms: Byzantine Studies, Language and Literature - Greek
Paper 125-cWomen and Empire Building in Chaucer's Work
(Language: English)
Huriye Reis, Department of English Language & Literature, Hacettepe University, Turkey
Index terms: Gender Studies, Language and Literature - Middle English
Abstract

Paper -a:
Using the Middle English romances Kyng Alisaunder and Of Arthur and Merlin, I will investigate why two unrelated narratives both use rape in the conception of rulers, a pattern that is replicated across Middle English romance. Although critics have studied both methods of expanding Empires through rape, and the fictional histories of both men, they have not examined how rape-conception impacts the ability of rulers to embody imperium. I will look at this pattern of rape-conception, discussing the work of critics including Wendy Doniger and Kathryn Gravdal, in order to establish why Middle English Emperors were frequently born from rape.

Paper -b:
This paper seeks to examine the figure of Eros in the Tale of Livistros and Rodamne, a 13th-century Byzantine romance, as a hybrid form of authority. This peculiar three-faced Eros, a combination of the imagery of the ancient Greek God and the Byzantine Christian emperor, governs the narrative principles of this love story and inspires both horror and attraction. Being such, Eros could be seen as a reflection of the unstable cultural context in which the Tale was produced, the empire of Nicea – an empire in exile, where the 'State' exists only to become something else: a vehicle of return to Constantinople.

Paper -c:
This paper looks at the relationship between women and empires in Chaucer's House of Fame, the Prologue to the Legend of Good Women, and Troilus and Criseyde. It argues that women such as Dido and Criseyde signify the enemy power to be conquered and subdued for the empires/kingdoms to develop and are thus subjugated by discourses that legitimate the imperial power. As women in love Dido and Criseyde are positioned as powerless instruments necessary for imperial ideology to succeed. However, as their stories of betrayal and abandonment converge with the discourses of empire they define empires and their power as destructive and exploitative.