This study focuses on the period between the late twelfth century and the late fifteenth century and the changes in perception toward sexual relations and gender politics, especially those pertaining to rape. While there is much to be said about instances of sexual violence in literature of the Early Middle Ages, this project relies on the romance fictions of the high and later Middle Ages because of the genre's unique position as record and critique of chivalric society. "Sexual Assault and Masculinity in Chivalric Romance" addresses instances of sexual assault where it does not conform to the binary of woman-as-victim, man-as-perpetrator. Much has been said on women as victims of rape, and there is a growing interest in masculinity studies; what happens when a woman is a perpetrator of sexual violence, however, has yet to be addressed. This dissertation does not solely focus on women as victimizers of men or women, but rather seeks to approach rape as a form of violence with a much more complicated psycho-social and literary implications. In so doing, I hope to complicate the essentialization of gendered identity based on ideations of sexual violence, not only for modern readers of medieval literature, but also for our conceptions of gendered violence in the twenty-first century. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester 2017. / March 8, 2017. / Gender, Medieval, Rape, Romance, Sexual violence / Includes bibliographical references. / David F. Johnson, Professor Directing Dissertation; Irene Padavic, University Representative; Anne Coldiron, Committee Member; Celia Daileader, Committee Member; Jamie Fumo, Committee Member.

This study examines the importance of geographical ideas in Dante’s Commedia and develops a historically sensitive geocritical methodology to analyze the function of real world geography within Dante’s poem. I aim to expand our understanding of the importance of the poet’s use of geography beyond the consulation of geographical sources and consideration of place names. In the first chapter case studies of geographical references with connections to the Islamic world show how historicized approaches open up new possibilities of understanding the medieval significance of the poet’s references. Subsequent chapters explore the relationship of the Commedia’s geography to medieval mapping technologies; comparing the parameters and borders of Dante’s world to the genre of medieval mappaemundi as well as putting this worldview into conversation with the emerging field of portolan charts and the developing navigational technology of the thirteenth century. This project further expands our definition of the stakes of geographical knowledge and traces the the social, political and cultural implications of the various modes of representing the world and how these implications are evident in the scholarly responses to the worldview represented within the Commedia. Ultimately, this project shows how a geocritical historicized reading of the Commedia opens up new directions for Dante studies and puts the geographical material of Dante’s work into conversation with other disciplines. The conclusion ends with a proposal for future digital directions for this research.

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“Fictions of Discernment in Late Medieval England” argues that secular modes of social vigilance and pastoral practices of the discernment of spirits (discretio spirituum) come together to form a broader epistemic culture of interpersonal watchfulness, one that takes bodily demeanor as its main material of analysis. My work reconfigures current critical conversations around the late medieval “interior turn” by reading the period’s complex meditations on interiority as literary artifacts of social interplay rather than as correlates of introspective practices. Middle English texts as varied as penitential manuals, contemplative treatises, and works of epic and chivalric romance abound with imaginative scenarios in which contenaunce, chere, and other forms of outward comportment are scrutinized for what they reveal about the person. These ubiquitous scenarios, what I call “discernment fictions,” test out methods of extracting knowledge about the human interior from bodily demeanor, envisioned as a fertile but uniquely challenging object of intellectual inquiry. These skills of discernment are incorporated into self-reflective practices through a refractive process, as one comes to understand that one’s own body is also an interpretive object available to others. It is in quotidian accounts of intersubjective scrutiny that some of the medieval period’s most dynamic experimental thinking on the problem of other minds takes place. I suggest that the explosive production of Middle English narrative literature in the late fourteenth century is powered by these depictions of interpersonal diagnosis, and by the epistemological interests from which they spring.

This study approaches the representation of Guinevere of the Arthurian legend from a Jungian-feminist perspective. Employing a revised quaternity of feminine archetypes, I indicate how the figure of Guinevere generally attracted to itself the negative aspects of the archetypes of the Mother, Maiden, Wise Woman, and Warrior. Viewed within the cultural context of the last quarter century, even the favorable depiction of the queen in several medieval romances and in nineteenth and twentieth century texts, has been perceived by modern fantasy authors as a negative portrayal. These modern fantasy writers, working within a genre favorable to revisionist characterization and drawing upon highly speculative theories of primitive goddess worship, have created a Guinevere that reflects ongoing feminist concerns.

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Although the works of Christine de Pizan have been of interest to scholars for some time, technological advances and initiatives to make digital copies of manuscripts available online have only recently enabled close comparisons between the visual programmes of her works to be made. This thesis demonstrates that detail usually considered secondary or 'paratextual' in Christine's manuscripts actually formed a carefully-constructed part of the work itself that Christine explicitly asks her audience to read. Through 'reading' the text and image simultaneously, the visual programme proves to comprise additional layers of meaning that were woven into her didactic works. These meanings can serve to supplement the educational and moral aims of the works, or, conversely, can be inconsistent with the message conveyed in the text, leading the reader-viewer to contemplate further on the matters presented and form their own opinions on them. Sometimes, meaning is created by intervisual connections with pre-existing iconography, such that viewers may be creating associations between the miniatures seen in Christine's manuscripts and other imagery, leading them to make certain associations - this is notably the case in author-portraits of Christine. As manuscripts prepared under the author's supervision came to be copied, changes were made to the iconographic programmes, testifying to and enabling different types of readings to take place. The findings of this thesis have implications for editorial practices of medieval works in general, as these tend to circulate in editions without the visual programme, providing modern readers with only a partial view of the complete work.