IMC 2019: Sessions
Session 609: National Identity and Medieval History Writing, II: Language and Multilingualism
Tuesday 2 July 2019, 11.15-12.45
| Organisers: | Henry Marsh, Department of History, University of Exeter Trevor Russell Smith, Institute for Medieval Studies, University of Leeds |
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| Moderator/Chair: | Jennifer Ruggier, Faculty of History, University of Cambridge |
| Paper 609-a | Literary Language and English Identity in John Gower's Mirour de l'Omme (Language: English) Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Language and Literature - French or Occitan, Political Thought, Religious Life |
| Paper 609-b | 'A parler des Engleys sanz fere mixtion': Code-Switching in Chronicles (Language: English) Index terms: Language and Literature - Middle English, Language and Literature - French or Occitan, Political Thought |
| Abstract | This series of four sessions examines the relationship between concepts of ethnic and national identity in the historical literature of the Middle Ages. Papers in this session consider how language and multilingualism were employed by medieval writers in the reflection and construction of national identities. The first paper assesses the impact of the tradition of Anglo-Norman devotional literature upon John Gower's Mirour de l’omme to re-examine scholarly approaches to Gower's work. The second paper will examine macaronic passages, which supposedly depict popular responses to important national events, in the Anglo-Norman and Middle English Prose Brut manuscripts and how these reflect developing, complicated ideas of national identity in 14th-century England. |