This thesis re-approaches medieval literature in terms of its investment in visuality in general and chromatic perception in particular. The introduction raises the philosophical problem off-colour: its status as an object for science, role in perception, and relationship to language and meaning as expressed within inter-subjective evaluation. Two modes of discourse for colour studies of medieval literature are proposed: the phenomenological (from the philosophical tradition of such as Maurice Merleau-Ponty) seeking localised networks and patterns of inter-subjective, embodied, perceptual meanings and values; and linguistic (informed by the philosophical psychology and language philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein), focusing on the lexicalisation of colour experience and creation of semantic distinctions corresponding with changing colour concepts, which in turn shape individual perceptions (both first-hand experience and that of reading). Part One introduces key medieval ideas and theories pertaining to visual perception in general, and chromatic perception in particular. The authority for, and influence on medieval writers of Plato's Timaeus, Aristotle's De Anima and Parva Naturalia, and relevant biblical material is considered. Subsequent chapters explore Patristic and Neo-Platonist developments in extramissive thought, locating within this tradition the roots of a synthesis of natural philosophy with Christian theology that is found in later medieval thought and its dealings with perception and colour. A key movement in the theology of light in relation to colour is connected to the wider philosophical movement from largely "extramissive" to largely "intromissive" models of perception. This shift in theory and its significance for colour perception is explained in terms of the impact of Aristotle's material colour theory as found in De anima and the De sensti et sensato section of his Parva Naturalia from the late twelfth century onwards. The part concludes with a detailed study of the nineteenth chapter of Bartholomaeus Anglicus's thirteenth-century encyclopedia, De Proprietatibus Rerum, which provides access to an important range of ideas and sources relevant for accessing the medieval mind in its intellectualized perception of colour. Lastly, such philosophical and theological sources and ideas as are found in Part One are compared with relevant examples from literary texts, ranging from the Middle English poem, The Parliament of the Three Ages, to Christine de Pisan's Le Livre de la Cite des Dames. Part Two treats colour perception in relation to a particular medieval phenomenon: the rise of medieval heraldry and the armorial function of the herald. It considers the spiritual and secular ideologies of chivalry and their relationship to armorial displays as found portrayed and construed in various genres of chivalric literature. Texts under discussion include books of chivalry and arms from the early thirteenth to fourteenth centuries, such as those principally indebted to New Testament armorial allegory and motif (from writers such as Ramon Llull to Geoffrey de Charny), to later fourteenth-century treatises employing Aristotle’s De sensu et sensato to establish a secular hierarchy of chivalric colours. The study culminates with Part Three, offering responses to and discussions of particular medieval fictions in terms of their phenomenological, linguistic and intertextual treatment of colour perception. Medieval texts addressed include, amongst others, Le Roman de la Rose by Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, and four Middle English metrical romances: Sir Gowther, Sir Amadace, Sir Launfal and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

My thesis considers English literary representations of two notorious classical women, Helen of Troy and Medea, from the twelfth to the seventeenth centuries. My primary focus is on the ways in which male authors in the period deal with the troubling spectres of the women's very different powers: Helen's alarming and captivating sexuality, Medea's magical abilities and unrestrained violence. First tracing how their power is represented in classical and late antique Greek and Latin texts, I then assess how their stories enter the English literary imagination. My project considers both longer renderings of their stories (Gower's Confessio Amantis, Lydgate's Troy Book, Heywood's Ages) and also the brief references to both women that recur time and again in the works of authors including Chaucer, Hoccleve, Gascoigne, Turberville and Greene. My research spans genres and media, considering the various uses the women are put to (didactic, cautionary, tragic, occasionally comic) in history, prose, poetry and drama, as well as in direct translation of classical works. Very often, authors use Helen and/or Medea ironically, in a way that demands a close familiarity with their classical incarnations (particularly, perhaps, with Ovid). Often paired as well as treated separately, Helen and Medea are used across the period to exemplify the unhappy effects of love, the dangerous effects of passion, and perhaps most frequently, the peculiar dangers women pose to men. Though their literary incarnations have often been considered separately by critics, by handling them together my research considers the way authors such as Chaucer, Lydgate, Gascoigne and Turberville choose their classical exemplars very carefully, how two apparently quite different notorious women may be turned to the same ends, used to caution both men and women. Taking their power, and concerted male efforts to undermine it, as its overarching theme, the thesis considers Helen and Medea in relation to medieval and Renaissance theories of translation, to instructional, didactic or cautionary literature, to Christianity, to political and religious upheaval, and most significantly, in relation to the male establishment of the period.

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Depuis le Moyen Âge, la légende arthurienne fascine auteurs et lecteurs. L'autorité du roi Arthur, la force des chevaliers de la Table ronde, ou encore la puissance magique de Merlin constituent les éléments essentiels qui structurent les récits médiévaux et leurs réécritures modernes. Aux XXe et XXIe siècles, les cinéastes s'emparent du mythe et de ses enjeux historiques pour transmettre leurs propres attentes narratives et esthétiques. Cependant, une légende en expansion pendant plusieurs siècles ne peut manquer de s'altérer. En envahissant petit et grand écrans, les récits arthuriens sont profondément modifiés : si la trame héritée de la tradition médiévale est le plus souvent conservée, avec ses nombreuses variantes, la représentation du pouvoir évolue quant à elle pour se plier aux conceptions politiques et sociales nouvelles. Le cinéma et la télévision, vecteurs majeurs dans la formation de l'imaginaire collectif, reprennent la légende arthurienne en l'adaptant aux attentes modernes en matière de démocratie, d'égalité, de religion et même de relations humaines. L'évolution des représentations de la puissance traduit une appropriation des récits médiévaux par les réalisateurs et auteurs modernes, et se caractérise par quatre aspects principaux : insistance sur la dimension humaine du roi Arthur, valorisation de la force guerrière des chevaliers, mise à distance du religieux au profit du merveilleux, et émergence anachronique d'un pouvoir populaire. De Geoffroy de Monmouth à Guy Ritchie, de Chrétien de Troyes à Alexandre Astier, en passant par T.H. White et Walt Disney, la légende arthurienne ainsi conservée dans l'imaginaire naît d'une conception mouvante du pouvoir / The Arthurian legend has captivated authors and readers since the Middle Ages. King Arthur’s authority, the strength of the Knights of the Round Table, Merlin’s magic: these key aspects structure medieval texts as well as their modern rewritings. In the 20th and 21st centuries, filmmakers have employed the myth to convey their own narrative and aesthetic agendas. However, such a series of rewritings and adaptations necessarily distorts the meaning of the legend developed over centuries. When shifted from text to screen, the myth changes: while the narrative, with its variations inherited from the medieval tradition, is often kept, the representations of power evolve to resemble modern social and political ideas. Films and TV series play a key role in the collective imagination and the Arthurian legend has been adapted to fit modern views on democracy, equality, religion and even human interactions. The evolution of the images of power emphasises the authors’ and filmmakers’ appropriation of medieval texts, and results in the enhancement of Arthur’s humanity, the glorification of the Knights’ force, the removal of Christian authority in favour of fantasy and the supernatural, and the appearance of anachronistic popular power. From Geoffrey of Monmouth to Guy Ritchie, from Chrétien de Troyes to Alexandre Astier, via Thomas Malory, T.H. White and Walt Disney, the legend of King Arthur that reappears in the collective imagination is grafted onto a shifting image of power

Comment parler de « la femme » ? En effet, ce thème sollicite bon nombre de discours qui n’appartiennent pas au même domaine scientifique et n’ont pas la même méthode. Quelle science doit donc être employée pour déterminer la hiérarchie des discours qui ont la différence sexuelle pour objet ? Quelle est la place de la philosophie dans la constellation des savoirs que le XIIIème siècle a vu se croiser à l’occasion d’un tel « thème » ? Que ce soit dans les discours universitaires d’Albert le Grand, de Thomas d’Aquin, de Bonaventure ou de Gilles de Rome, il appert que l’objet d’étude qu’est la « femme » est épistémologiquement cohésif. Les autorités comme Aristote, Galien, Avicenne et Averroès sont confrontées à Augustin, Pierre Lombard, Paul de Tarse et aux « Saintes Ecritures ». Est-ce donc à la Révélation de donner les principes des discours sur « la femme », ou bien à la médecine de discriminer ou de prouver les thèses morales et politiques concernant la différence sexuelle ? Chaque auteur semble avoir une réponse qui témoigne de son épistémologie sous-jacente et c’est la cohérence scientifique pour parler de la sexuation et, en définitive, de la femme, qui est visée par ces auteurs du Bas Moyen-Age. / How can we speak about « woman »? Indeed, many discourses refer to this subject without belonging to the same scientific field and without sharing the same methodology. Which science should be selected to determine the hierarchy of the discourse about sexual difference? What part did philosophy play in this subject among the manifold fields of knowledge of the 13th century? In the academical corpus of Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, Giles of Rome and many others, the study of woman looks epistemologically cohesive. Authoritative voices such as those of Aristotle, Galen, Avicenna and Averroes are confronted with those of Augustine, P. Lombard, Paul, and with the “Holy Scriptures”. Is it hence up to the Book of Revelation to provide the principles underpinning the discourses on “woman”, or up to medical authorities to distinguish between or prove the moral and political theses on sexual difference? Each author’s answer to this question seems to testify to his underlying epistemology and it is the scientific consistency which characterizes the talk about the gender, and ultimately about the woman, which is targeted by these Late Middle Ages authors.

Le fragment de la Suite du Roman de Merlin que nous éditons est conservé dans quatre manuscrits (ms. de Londres, British Library, Additional 38117, le ms. Cambridge University Library, Additional 7071, le ms. de la Bibilothèque Nationale de France, fr. 112 - ms. de base de notre édition, et le ms. d'Imola, Biblioteca Comunale, ms. 135 AA25 n o 9 (7)). Par rapport aux trois éditions de la Suite déjà existantes (O. Sommer, Die Abenteuer Gawains Ywains und Le Morholts mit Den Drei Jungfrauen (Zeitschrift für Romanische Philologie, Beiheft 47, 1913), P. C. Smith (Les enchantemenz de Bretagne, Chapel Hill, 1977), édition réalisée à partir du ms. Cambridge, et G. Roussineau (La Suite du Roman de Merlin, Droz, 1996), édition effectuée essentiellement à partir du ms. de Londres), l'objectif de notre édition est de fournir un texte de la Suite du Roman de Merlin établi à partir du ms. BNF 112, selon les principes modernes d'édition des textes médiévaux, et comportant un apparat critique à deux niveaux. Nous avons essayé d'offrir un grand nombre de variantes détaillées, fournies par les autres témoins de l’œuvre, en limitant nos interventions à des corrections qui s'imposent. Le texte de l'édition est suivi par des notes explicatives, un glossaire et un index des noms propres. Sur le plan linguistique, nous avons relevé des traits qui rattachent notre ms. au domaine du Nord (conseilh ; karoloient, etc.), des tournures modernes par rapport aux autres témoins de l’œuvre et un certain nombre de termes (baudel ; pourvillier) qui peuvent enrichir la base du Dictionnaire du Moyen Français. / The fragment of the Suite du Roman de Merlin that we edited is preserved in four manuscripts (London manuscript, British Library, Additional 38117, the Cambridge University Library manuscript, Additional 7071, the BNF 112 manuscript, which is the main manuscript of our edition, and the Imola manuscript, Biblioteca Comunale, ms. 135 AA25 n° 9 (7)). Comparing to the other three already existing editions of the Suite (O. Sommer, Die Abenteuer Gawains Ywains und Le Morholts mit Den Drei Jungfrauen (Zeitschrift für Romanische Philologie, Beiheft 47, 1913), P. C. Smith (Les enchantemenz de Bretagne, Chapel Hill, 1977), edition based upon the Cambridge manuscript, and G. Roussineau (La Suite du Roman de Merlin, Droz, 1996), edition mainly based upon the London manuscript), the aim of our edition is to offer a text of the Suite du Roman de Merlin based upon the BNF 112 manuscript, according to the modern principles applied in the transcription of the medieval texts. We offered a great number of variants given by the other manuscritpts of the Suite and limited our interference with the text only for corrections which we considered strictly necessary. The text of our edition is followed by notes, a glossary and an index of names. On the linguistic level, we noted regional caracteristics that lead us to consider that our manuscript belongs to the North domain (conseilh ; karoloient, etc.), modern structures comparing to the other manuscripts of the Suite and a certain number of termes (baudel ; pourvillier) which can improve the DMF (Dictionnaire du Moyen Français) basis.