IMC 2015: Sessions
Session 1229: Renewing Literary Traditions, I
Wednesday 8 July 2015, 14.15-15.45
Moderator/Chair: | M. Jane Toswell, Department of English, University of Western Ontario |
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Paper 1229-a | Change and Renewal in Layamon's Brut: The Case of Sea Words and Images (Language: English) Index terms: Language and Literature - Middle English, Language and Literature - Old English |
Paper 1229-b | The Knight's Tale: Chaucer’s 14th-Century Romance (Language: English) Index terms: Language and Literature - Middle English, Mentalities, Social History |
Paper 1229-c | Reforming the Hero: Sir Gawain (Language: English) Index terms: Language and Literature - Middle English, Teaching the Middle Ages |
Abstract | Paper -a: Paper -b: This paper will provide an investigation of Diamond's claim in relation to Chaucer's Knight's Tale through an exploration of how romance tropes function within the tale. Chaucer employs the romance genre in the Canterbury Tales while situated in a very different social context to the one in which romance originated. I will argue that the way in which Chaucer employs and transforms the romance genre in this tale suggests an awareness of the fact that a knightly, chivalric worldview was coming under threat within his changing society. I will illustrate that Chaucer employs the romance genre in the Knight's Tale in order to engage in a dialogue with the hierarchical assumptions traditionally upheld in romances, and that he often diverges from traditional romance expectations in order to explore concerns - such as social tensions and a waning optimism in the aristocracy - which are relevant for his own changing society. Finally, I will suggest that the romance genre is adapted throughout the Canterbury Tales in order to investigate social issues relevant to Chaucer's 14th-century social context. Paper -c: Nevertheless, he chose his hero to remain English, connected to his language, roots and Celtic traditions and so he wrote about loyal Gawain. Our aim will be to show how the poet, in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, has deliberately chosen to keep his hero English, away from the continental traditions, especially the French ones. A change in literature was made by reforming a hero, the one the English soil needed to resist its lingering intruder. |