| Paper 202-a | Blurring the Boundaries of Nature and Culture in Ywain and Gawain
(Language: English)
Azime Pekşen Yakar, Department of English Language & Literature, Hacettepe University, Turkey
Selen Aktaran, Department of Foreign Languages, Gebze Technical University
Index terms: Language and Literature - Comparative, Language and Literature - Middle English |
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| Abstract | Paper -a:
Ywain and Gawain narrates Ywain's knightly adventures due to which he is spiritually transformed into a perfect knight. His adventure begins with his departure from Arthur's court with the intent of avenging his cousin Colgrevance upon hearing his anecdote of combat with a knight and his subsequent defeat. At the beginning of Ywain's journey, nature/culture binary opposition becomes visible with the sudden change in topography from the civilised court to the wilderness. According to anthropocentricism, nature and culture are often thought to be separate from each other and dichotomous. At first glance, it seems that Ywain also adopts such an anthropocentric viewpoint, that is, culture predominates nature. However, it can be observed that nature/culture binary opposition and its rigid definitions are challenged and blurred throughout the romance. In this regard, this paper aims to explore Ywain's treatment of nature/culture binary opposition and analyse how the narrative challenges the strict boundaries of these two concepts through the lens of Donna Haraway's term 'natureculture(s)' which acknowledges the inseparability and equal importance of nature and culture.
Paper -b:
Published in 1485, Thomas Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur is a chivalric romance text reflecting late medieval attitudes and values, illuminating contemporary ideologies of social situations involving disability in the chivalric community. Laura Finke observes that 'violence provides the foundation for an elaborate structure of exchange which determines hierarchies among men; it functions as a form of what anthropologist Pierre Bourdieu refers to as symbolic capital'. By examining the text, it is possible to ascertain medieval ideas and responses to disability through the character's reaction to their own and other's infirmities caused by violence. These attitudes, in turn, illustrate the development of societal views regarding disability, thereby pushing the boundaries of what societies consider 'normal'.
Paper -c:
While much scholarly discussion has been devoted to the aspects of kingship in Malory's Morte Darthur, the physical representations of these political models have received little focus. In this paper, I assert that sword imagery is a crucial key for understanding Malory's two seemingly complimentary but ultimately contradictory models for kingship. Malory's seeming demotion of the divine authority embodied in the sword in the stone (anvil) gives way to recognition of the author's emphasis on reciprocity as represented by Excalibur. As this paper will demonstrate, Malory's omissions from his Sangreal sources show his interest in dislodging divine kingship and constructing a reciprocal kingship in his Arthurian compendium.
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