The alliterating poems written during the Alliterative Revival have mistakenly been grouped together metrically, when in fact they represent a diversity of meters. They mainly use the same phonology, however, which was also current in Chaucer and Gower's poetic dialects. In detailing the diverse meters, this study argues that the meter is simple and learnable both in the fourteenth and twenty-first centuries. Chapter 1 establishes the current intractability of Middle English metrical studies, defines the English context in which these poems were written, and challenges the traditional bifurcation of English poetry into accentual and syllable-stress. The largest group of poems shares a common meter based on long unrhymed alliterating lines that use historical final --e and asymmetrical half-lines as structuring devices. Chapter 2 adds elision to Thomas Cable's metrical system to demonstrate that Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Piers Plowman are both regular, and they belong to the same metrical tradition despite the usual move by metrists to set Piers Plowman to one side. Chapter 3 compares the meter of The Destruction of Troy with the alliterative meter described in Chapter 2 and finds that Troy uses a meter that only superficially resembles the alliterative meter because the poet does not employ half-line dissimilation. Chapter 4 compares the Gawain-poet's Pearl and the bobs and wheels from Gawain to reveal that their meters belong to neither of the two traditional schools of poetry, but is instead a medieval dolnik. Chapter 5 concludes on several of the Harley Lyrics, further problematizes the binary of native and non-native meters, and hypothesizes that the medieval audience expected a diversity of metrical experiments combining these traditions in various ways.

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Courtly love lyrics, like other courtly genres, are dominated by male-voiced texts that privilege male perspectives. In conventional courtly love lyrics, women are silenced and objectified by the male speaker. Still, a handful of women-voiced lyrics--"women's songs"--exist in the courtly love lyrical tradition. This thesis studies women's songs in Middle English and their role in the androcentric courtly love tradition. / In the first chapter, I discuss critical perspectives on conventional courtly representations of women. In the second chapter, I locate Middle English women's songs in literary contexts other than courtly love: the Middle English lyrical tradition, the cross-cultural phenomenon of medieval women's songs, and the manuscript contexts of Middle English women's songs. In Chapter Three, I discuss the individual songs themselves and examine the range of perspectives found in woman-voiced lyrics. / My discussion of Middle English women's songs includes texts not previously admitted to the genre. This expanded collection of women's songs creates an alternative courtly discourse privileging female perspectives. Middle English women's songs create a space for women's voices in courtly love.

The extent to which translation moulded Middle English romance as an emerging genre remains largely unexamined. In this dissertation I identify the principal methodological difficulties that have prevented scholars from giving due attention to this problem, and offer a case study in which I look at how translational procedures shaped the romance of Sir Beves of Hampton, a translation of the Anglo-Norman Boeve de Haumtone . / Having outlined the practical difficulties posed by the intricate textual tradition of Boeve and Beves, the multilingualism of medieval England, and the scarcity of concrete evidence regarding the audience for Middle English romance, I focus on methodological issues: the inability of equivalence-based definitions of translation to accommodate medieval translation practice, the futility of attempts to demarcate translation from adaptation, and the difficulty of integrating different textual levels in the study of translations. / In the first two analytical chapters of the dissertation I concentrate on those aspects of Beves that can best highlight the importance of translation processes in the constitution of the genre. I begin by examining the way in which the translator dealt with the most important translational constraints, some of which, like language, were beyond his control, while others, such as versification, were partly self-imposed. I then proceed to study the workings of the so-called laws of translation (explicitation, simplification, and repertorization) in the process whereby Boeve became Beves. The analyses carried out in these two chapters allow me to contest the received opinion according to which the author of Beves treated his original very freely. I show that, on the contrary, the distinctive features of the Middle English text result from a constant productive tension between source and target. / My study ends with an analysis of what happens when the translator's impulse to be faithful to his source is frustrated by the inaccessibility of the socio-historical context of the original. I examine the most closely translated sections of the poem to show how unrecognized topical references are flattened into literary cliches, which bring into the text their own generic connotations and disassemble some of the carefully constructed thematic parallels and analogies of the Anglo-Norman romance.

This thesis examines the heroines in Middle English romances and argues that, like the noblewomen who lived in England during the Plantagenet period, they are not helpless princesses simply waiting to be rescued by the brave, strong hero. In fact, these heroines show an enormous amount of intelligence, ingenuity, perseverance, and strength of character. Many play a pivotal role in the hero's success in his quest by giving him a token, providing knowledge, or teaching him a lesson. Also, it is the heroines who provide the heroes with rewards after the quests are completed. The present thesis offers a contribution to the study of Medieval English Romances in providing a revision of standard feminist analyses. In many of these studies there seems to be a lack of appreciation for the role of female characters and their relation to the outcome of the hero's quest. Even studies written from a feminist perspective tend to overlook the strength of the heroine's character, the attainment of her goals, and the fact that she is often a powerful figure who is of much higher status than her suitor. In these romances the female characters wield a substantial amount of both private and public power, an aspect of the genre which has often been ignored.

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This thesis uses a study of the collocation of words for treasure to address the question of the relationship between the conventionality and originality of Old English verse. Collocation will be defined as the tendency for words to appear together. Such a definition allows for the examination of patterns of repetition beyond the half-line while also including the half-line formula thereby including stylistic features which have been considered, negatively, as constraints and restrictions on the freedom of the Old English poet, as well as other stylistic features which have been considered positively, as evidence of the rhetorical skill of the Old English poet. Rather than restrict the number of poems which I study, I have chosen to restrict the number of words to five words (mađm, hord, gestreon, sinc and frætwe) for treasure. This restriction allows for a wide spectrum of Old English verse to be examined since the words appear widely throughout the corpus. I hope thus to avoid the tendency common in scholarship to study not the whole of Old English poetry but to focus on Beowulf and verse at one time thought to be at least partly heroic. With few exceptions, the study of the style of Old English verse has largely ignored meaning. The restriction of this study to five words will allow for comments on stylistic features to be drawn with reference not only to the needs of verse form but with careful attention to the subtlety of the semantic fields of the words involved. In Chapter One, I review past scholarship on the lexis and style of Old English Verse with particular emphasis on the question of conventionality and originality. Chapter Two examines the place of treasure in Old English verse. Chapter Three focuses on the semantic analysis of the five words for treasure. I devote attention to the referents of each word and also include an account of such semantic aspects as nuance, connotation and themes associated with each word. Chapter Four consists of a study of the lexical collocations associated with each of these five words for treasure. Chapter Five considers the implications of the collocations of words for treasure for the conventionality and originality of the style and lexis of Old English verse. The conclusion attempts to comment on the style and quality of individual Old English poems. Lexical collocation is an aspect of lexis and style which has been largely ignored and which offers a new vantage point from which to consider Old English poetics further.

Fossil plants are regard to be excellent proxies to trace paleoclimatic and paleoatmospheric changes. The vegetational response to changing paleoclimate and paleoatmospheric conditions has already been known for a long time and is well documented for the Paleogene of central Europe. Methods such as the Coexistence Approach (CA) and the Climate Leaf Analyses Multivariate Program (CLAMP) analyze the composition of fossil plant assemblages. Changes in paleoclimate and CO2 through time can be tracked also via changes in morphometric parameters such as leaf area, leaf size and leaf shape or epidermal (cuticular) parameters as for instance stomata density (SD), stomata index (SI) and stomata size. The multivariate gas exchange model combines morphometric and cuticular parameters, together with assumed paleoclimate conditions and physiological data of nearest living equivalents to determine paleo-CO2. Plants show differences in morphological, morphometric and cuticular parameters, not only in response to overall changes in CO2 and climate, but also due to their immobility and dependency on light intensity, water availability and soil conditions at the respective site. In this study leaf traits of both Rhodomyrtophyllum reticulosum and Platanus neptuni from 23 sites in Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic covering a time span from the late early Eocene to the early Miocene of central Europe are investigated. Alongside the stratigraphic range of the data set, which allows for tracing long-term variations in the respective parameters, sites of different depositional facies types (maar deposits, marine deposits and fluvial-lacustrine deposits) were included. It has been proven that the investigation of single species and their correspondence to global and regional paleoclimatic and paleoatmospheric shifts has to be done considering differences in the respective depositional setting and thus habitat. Regional effects influence the peculiarity of leaf traits greatly which implies that regional and site related patterns partly overweigh global correspondences. The weak correlation of leaf trait changes to global changes in paleoclimate and CO2 implies that the long-lived species Rhodomyrtophyllum reticulosum and Platanus neptuni are not suitable to track these changes due their high plasticity and adaptability. The long stratigraphic range of the investigated species therefore point out the high adaption potential which by implication leads to a lower correspondence to global paleoclimatic changes. The determination of crucial leaf traits and their response to overall changes in paleoclimate and CO2 hampers the fact that the fossil record bears mainly elements present in azonal vegetation which is caused by predominantly burial of fossils in aquatic bodies. Hence, long-lived species could have been survived these remarkable changes in climate from the end of the Early Eocene Climatic Optimum to the Oligocene icehouse world due to their occurrence in azonal assemblages, buffering global effects in climate variability to a certain degree. The investigation of long-lived fossil species therefore has to be done by coincident consideration of the composition of the whole plant assemblage, which reflects both azonal and partly zonal vegetation of the respective time interval.

The Land of Cokaygne may be interpreted as a burlesque of the paradise legend of the saints’ abode in the Eden of the blessed. Or it may be taken as a poor folk's Utopia, expressing the desire of the common people for a life of abundance and ease. The essay is therefore divided into two parts. The first concerns the poem as burlesque. What beliefs and conventions are being parodied and what can be learned of the satirist? To answer the first question I offer as a frame of reference a resume of conventional paradise motifs as illustrated in certain paradise legends which were widely known in medieval England. To answer the second question I find analogies to the poem in Greek and Celtic literature and discover the sceptical and satirical spirit in which they were written. The Celtic analogue invites comparison of the Cokaygne poet with the wandering scholar of the Middle Ages. It is possible that the Cokaygne poet with his sceptical spirit and delight in the sensual pleasures was a goliardic clerk. Turning to the poem itself, I set forth those passages of the poem which burlesque the conventional paradise motifs--the list of negative joys, the rivers, the abode of holy men, the garden, well and tree, the catalogue of precious stones and, finally, the barrier. The poet's method is to improvise freely, introducing foreign elements into a familiar series and thus making an exalted theme ludicrous. The Cokaygne motifs--the cloister roofed with cakes, the roast goose, the well-seasoned larks--are used in this way. But the poem may be taken out of its Middle English context and given a larger literary relationship. Structurally, it may be classed as a satiric utopia, for in his burlesque the poet has created a topsy-turvy land as a vehicle for breaking down existing ideas about paradise and for criticizing the religious orders for their immorality. The second part of the essay concerns the poem as a utopia. The Cokaygne fantasy has its origins in primitive agrarian rites and its themes are abundance without toil, general license and inversion of status. The acting out by the folk of these themes in the medieval folk festivals may be taken as a projection of the world as they would like it to be. Around the Cokaygne fantasy the utopia of the folk takes shape. The poet uses the roast goose motif to burlesque the saints’ paradise. But he also uses it as a symbol of the good life without fear of want. His poem takes up the Cokaygne theme of abundance without toil, and communicates as well a sense of the injustice suffered by the poor. Two hundred years later, Thomas More also speaks for the poor and oppressed in his Utopia, and it is his conviction of social injustice which gives emotional force to the theme he shares with the Cokaygne poet of abundance without toil. Other Utopians have in some way given expression to this theme, but only William Morris in News from Nowhere has captured that sense of freedom and of delight in the abundant earth which pervades the Middle English poem. The Utopian element in the poem may also be measured by contrasting it with the anti-utopia. Swift, Huxley and Orwell create wonderlands in the spirit of anti-Cokaygne. They mistrust the idea of abundance without toil and take a gloomy view of the perfectibility of man. They have never been inspired by the vision of the wonderful tree, symbolic of Utopian dreams, or else they have rejected it out of concern for our minds and spirits. The burlesque utopia of the Cokaygne poet lives on in North American folk literature of the twentieth century. It is best known in that well-loved Cokaygne song. The Big Rock Candy Mountains. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate