This study examines six texts o f the 12[sup th] and 13[sup th] centuries for the fantastic mode. It first refutes the critical assertion that the fantastic could not exist in medieval literature, but also establishes that most of the casually denominated "fantastic" is not. For the genuine fantastic, both in general and in its medieval appearances, questions of reality are at most peripheral. Rather the fantastic mode encodes itself in the narrative structure, creating ambiguity and openness. The structural approach frees the discussion o f the fantastic from theories predicated upon issues of thematics, reality-based analysis, and didactic categorizations o f supernatural objects. The first two chapters synthesize those elements from modern works of fantastic theory, (re)deflning the fantastic based upon a semiotic approach. The introduction concentrates on the need to reexamine the corpus of critical works addressing the fantastic. Chapter 1 summarizes the theoretical discussion in order to adjust the definition of "fantastic" as a critical term according to a more pre-Renaissance view of reality. Chapter 2 proposes the parallel worlds model as a structural model for the identification of the fantastic mode in texts where the supernatural is evident, with an emphasis on fantastic space as an intermediary locale between worlds. The last four chapters apply the parallel worlds model to a selected corpus of six narratives. While the structures of these texts vary in length, the fantastic is consistently manifested in a pattern that alternates between the real world, fantastic space and the otherworld. The open-ended structure of five narratives indicates that journeys to the otherworld are rarely accomplished with a high degree of completion, and therefore the narrative program remains incomplete. The conclusion is a defense of the fantastic within medieval French literature, concentrating on how the supernatural creates /otherness/, fantastic space and openness in the narrative program. The fantastic as a powerful but elusive force within Old French romance narratives often shifts to the merveilleioc in the end. The parallel worlds model, when used in conjunction with other theories for identifying the fantastic, is a structural method that emphasizes openness as a characteristic of the fantastic within medieval romance narratives.

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One of the unfortunate corollaries of poststructuralist theorizing about literary texts has been the equation of a skepticism concerning language with a skepticism concerning meaning. The menace of unrestrained relativism has tended to polarize the critical community into proponents of a 'logo-diffuse' onto-epistemology and proponents of a 'logo-centric' one, and critical practice has followed this lead. The critic who attempts to situate literature within the parameters of such a debate is likely to fail unless he or she appeals to a much more extensive discourse, one which antedates the provincial contours of the current discussion. Medieval mysticism is a significant entry in the lineage of influence which comprises the western tradition. This thesis looks at the apophatic or negative strategies of mystical texts in order to locate meaning in the interplay of negation and affirmation with which they are concerned.

Women have been healers since the dawn of humankind. They had learned their medical skills in a natural way since, as child bearers, they were also the first midwives, nurses, health carers, apothecaries and physicians. / That women were skilled in the practice of medicine and that female healers were an accepted part in medieval medical practice is evident from the numerous references describing medical treatment as found in the courtly Middle High German romances. In this study, I will first offer an overview of the medical knowledge and practice of the Middle Ages. Then I will present literary examples and incidences portraying women as healers as described in the German courtly romances of Tristan by Gottfried von Stra$ beta$burg, Erec and Iwein by Hartmann von Aue, and Parzival and Willehalm by Wolfram von Eschenbach, in order to elucidate and complete the image of the medieval female healer. / At the time when these romances were created, medical knowledge and practice were greatly influenced by the transmission and reception of Greek & Arabic medical works which formed the basis of a new Latin medical learning. This in turn provided the basis for a growing vernacular European medical literature. On the one hand, medical practice was still based on traditional folk medicine with the female healers preparing and using simple herbal remedies; on the other hand, they resorted to exotic compound medicines, such as theriac, which was closer to the learned book medicine.

This dissertation contributes to medieval feminist scholarship by forging new insights into the relationship between gender theory and developing notions of orality and textuality in late medieval Europe. I examine three conventional satirical depictions of women as deviant speakers in medieval literature---as loquacious gossips, scolding shrews and cursing witches---to reveal how medieval perceptions of oral and textual discursive modes influenced literary representations of women. The dissertation demonstrates that our comprehension of the literary battle between the sexes requires a recognition and understanding of how discursive modes were gendered in a culture increasingly defining itself in terms of textuality. My work pursues the juxtaposition of the rational, literate male and the irrational, oral female across a wide range of texts, from Dunbar and Chaucer's courtly literature, to more socially diffused works, such as carols, sermon exempla and the Deluge mystery plays, as well as texts, like Margery Kempe's autobiography and witchcraft documents, that pertain to historical women. I demonstrate the social impact of this convention by anchoring these literary texts in their socio-historical context. The significance of my identification of this nexus of orality and femininity is that I am able to delineate an ideology profoundly affecting the way women's speech and writings have been received and perceived for centuries. This notion of gendered discourse can also redefine how we perceive medieval literature. Mikhail Bakhtin's discursive principles---ideas that stem from his application of the dynamics of oral communication and performance to the literary text---help to liberate new meanings from old texts by allowing us to read against the grain of convention. Both Bakhtin's theory of dialogism and Walter Ong's summary of the psychodynamics of orality suggest that orally influenced discourse is less interested in monolithic truth than in the art of tellin

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The Buxheim Organ Book, the largest fifteenth-century manuscript of keyboard tablature, has never before been examined as a whole in light of musica ficta issues, although it contains far more accidentals than any contemporaneous source in mensural notation. Although tablature has been used by various scholars to examine accidentals in sixteenth-century music, studies of fifteenth-century accidentals have focussed on theoretical evidence and small groups of pieces from mensural sources. The author uses the Buxheim Organ Book to extend the investigations of accidentals in tablature back into the fifteenth century, combining the large data set provided by this manuscript with a statistical approach modelled on that of Thomas Brothers's smaller-scale study of the chansons of Binchois. Specialised computer programs are introduced, which detect musical structures relevant to the analysis of Renaissance music such as different types of cadential voice leading. These programs function as extensions to David Huron's Humdrum Toolkit. With these tools, signing practises in the intabulations are statistically compared with all of the concordances of the models. Conclusions are suggested pertaining to issues of signature accidental transmission, partial signatures, mode, and musica ficta, which can be used as a contextual backdrop for the analysis of individual pieces. The evidence provided by the accidentals in Buxheim and its concordances draws a clear picture of how a group of fifteenth-century musicians added accidentals to polyphonic music. For the first time, this study provides us with principles and guidelines for musica ficta -decisions based on actual practice.

This study explores the presentation of transgressive, effective and erotic relationships in a selected group of early modern plays as those relationships relate to the English Renaissance ideal of marriage and sexuality expressed in religious and secular tracts. The depictions of illicit love and sexuality in these plays reveal problematic social and moral issues inherent in the construction of the English Renaissance ideal of love and marriage. Not only do the dramatists reveal the tension between transgressive and normative love and sexuality, but they do so through the use of aesthetic forms that transgress conventional dramatic structure. This dissertation contends that the unconventional dramatic representation of transgression functions as a cognitive mode for the audience in their understanding of the practical social reality associated with the abstract ideality of love and marriage. Focussing on a selected plays of English Renaissance dramatists William Shakespeare, Thomas Middleton, Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher, Thomas Heywood, John Ford, and two anonymous playwrights, I suggest that the dramatists refuse to condemn or condone the transgression. Rather, they endow it with meaning, and while not rescinding the ideal love and sexuality, offer possible ways of accommodating it.