This thesis explores three versions of Beowulf: Gareth Hinds’s graphic novel Beowulf (2007), Maria Dahvana Headley’s translation Beowulf (2020), and Rowdy Herrington’s film Road House (1989). While Hinds and Headley fail to convey Beowulf as a cultural elegy by subtracting or misrepresenting significant scenes and characters, Road House superimposes the story of Beowulf onto 1980s America. Parallels between the plots of Beowulf and Road House and Road House’s interaction with the political underpinnings of the 80s (such as Reaganomics and the AIDS epidemic) make the film one of the best at capturing the elements of cultural elegy in the original poem.

This thesis analyzes David Jones’s In Parenthesis to demonstrate the failed notion of chivalry, courtesy, and knighthood in modernity during and after the war. Jones’s semi-autobiographical prose poem recounting his experiences of WWI was published in 1937, nineteen years after the war ended. Jones applied the concepts of chivalry, courtesy, and knighthood to his experiences during WWI through In Parenthesis. Jones used these concepts, which originated in the classical period and the Middle Ages, to demonstrate how they have changed over time, especially given the events of WWI. The best way for Jones to demonstrate the impact of WWI was to use the medieval ideas of knighthood (which were arguably idealized up until the war) to describe how the modern world could no longer be identified with those ideals.

No description available.

In diesem Aufsatz stellen wir den Stand der Postkolonialen Studien aus der Perspektive der germanistischen Mediävistik dar. Zunächst geben wir anhand vor allem englischsprachiger mediävistisch-postkolonialer Forschung einen kurzen Überblick über die wichtigsten Beiträge der letzten zwei Jahrzehnte. Anschließend skizzieren wir postkoloniale Fragestellungen und Themen mit besonderem Fokus auf deutschsprachiges Erzählen vor 1600. Zu diesem Zweck stellen wir kurze Textanalysen vor und gehen auf Begriffe und Konzepte ein, die wir für die postkoloniale Mediävistik für relevant halten. Anschließend gehen wir näher auf Edward Saids bekannte Überlegungen zum »Orientalismus« ein, bevor wir schließlich unsere Erwartungen an die zukünftige Entwicklungen einer postkolonialen germanistischen Mediävistik formulieren. / In this essay, we present the state of postcolonial studies from a German medieval studies perspective. First, we give a brief overview of the most important contributions to the field of postcolonial studies over the last two decades, focusing mainly on English-language texts. In the next section we outline a range of postcolonial issues and topics, with a particular focus on German narratives before 1600. For this purpose, we provide examples of short, textual analyses and address terms and concepts that we consider relevant to medieval postcolonial studies. We then go into more detail on Edward Said’s well-known reflections on ›Orientalism‹. Finally, we delineate our hopes regarding future developments of postcolonial medieval German studies.

Mémoire en recherche-création / La poésie lyrique en langue romane, également connue comme lyrique courtoise, est un genre littéraire qui se développe dans les cours aristocratiques du sud de la France, entre les XIIe et XIIIe siècles, sous la plume des troubadours. Ces hommes et seigneurs féodaux issus des cours méridionales composent des textes lyriques, voués à la performance orale, en langue occitane (aussi connue comme langue d’oc), à partir d’un art de composition dont ils sont les inventeurs : le trobar (« art de trouver »). Dans leurs compositions, un thème récurrent concerne une conception particulière du sentiment amoureux dans les rapports socio-érotiques entre les sexes : la fin’amors (« véritable amour »). Alors que le trobar a fait l’objet d’études structurelles et formelles, des approches sociologiques, ethnologiques et même psychologiques ont tenté de comprendre les origines et le fonctionnement de la fin’amors comme idéologie et système culturel. Suivant les études psychologiques, notre projet souhaite considérer la fin’amors comme un chemin d’initiation masculine, hypothèse que nous explorons au moyen de deux dispositifs, l’un critique (l’essai), l’autre narratif (la création). L’essai prend ainsi pour objet d’étude les textes des troubadours Bernart de Ventadorn et Jaufre Rudel, et s’intéresse à certains de leurs thèmes poétiques qui manifestent des dimensions subjectives, spirituelles et genrées, encore problématiques pour la critique, notamment : la nature du joy, les rites de l’asag et de la mort-par-amour chez Bernart, ainsi que la dame lointaine de Jaufre. À travers le filtre d’un cadre théorique tripartite, notre analyse œuvre à réinterpréter et resignifier ces motifs pour pouvoir les exploiter dans notre création littéraire : la Canczon de Virès (« la Chanson de Virès »). Œuvre romanesque et dramatique, vouée à une mise en scène, elle investit l’architecture des chansons de geste pour explorer notre hypothèse de départ et interroger les problématiques liées à l’oralité des textes poétiques. La Canczon chante ainsi le récit épique de huit jeunes hommes dans un village fictif du Midi qui, guidés par les esprits de huit troubadours, traversent des épreuves fantastiques pour atteindre une nouvelle maturité. Cette démarche s’inscrit dans le Mouvement Mythopoïétique Masculiniste du poète Robert Bly, et dans le cadre théorique de la psychologie analytique (Jung, 1981 ; Moore et Gillette, 1990, 1993) et de la mythocritique (Eliade, 1959 ; Campbell, 2008). / Romance language lyric poetry, also known as courtly lyric, is a literary genre that was developed in the aristocratic courts of southern France, between the 12th and 13th centuries, by the troubadour poets. These feudal lords from the southern courts composed lyrical texts, meant to be sung in public, in the Occitan language (also known as langue d’oc), through a poetic art: the trobar (“art of finding”). A recurring theme in their texts touches on a particular conception of love between men and women: fin’amors (“true love”). While the trobar has been subject to structural and formal studies, sociological, ethnological and even psychological approaches have attempted to understand the origins and functions of fin’amors as a cultural system. Our aim in this project is to reconsider fin’amors as a male initiation path; we will explore this hypothesis through a critical (the essay) and a narrative (the creation) device. The essay centers around the texts of troubadours Bernart de Ventadorn and Jaufre Rudel, and focuses on certain poetic themes which manifest subjective, spiritual and gendered dimensions – that remain problematic for research –, such as: the nature of the joy feeling, the asag and death-for-love rituals in Bernart’s poetry, as well as Jaufre’s distant lady. Through the lense of a theoretical framework, our analysis proposes a reinterpretation of these motifs in order to exploit them in our literary creation: the Canczon de Virès (“the Song of Virès”). This dramatic work, meant to be staged, borrows the architecture of the great French epic poems to explore our hypothesis and question the lyric texts’ oral dimension. Thus, the Canczon sings the epic tale of eight young men in a fictional southern French village who, under the guidance of eight troubadours’ spirits, undergoe fantastic trials to reach a new form of maturity. Our approach draws on Robert Bly’s Mythopoietic Men’s Movement, as well as the theoretical framework of analytical psychology (Jung, 1981; Moore and Gillette, 1990, 1993) and mythocriticism (Eliade, 1959; Campbell, 2008).

This thesis examines the effects the imposition of Anglo-Norman lordship, following the Anglo-Norman expansion into Wales in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, had upon the landscape of the Welsh border region. In order to achieve this aim this project makes extensive use of digital Geographical Information Systems (GIS) in order to produce a detailed county-wide study of the landscape of post-Conquest Monmouthshire as well as comprehensive case studies of individual Anglo-Norman lordships contained within the boundaries of the county. This thesis also aims to locate its findings within important current debates in historic archaeology about the effects of medieval lordship upon the landscape, on the roles of the physical environment and human agency in the forming of the historic landscape, on the wider role of castles as lordship centres, beyond simple military functionality.

This thesis provides a comparative analysis of seven different variants of the fairy tale commonly known as “Donkeyskin,” classified in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther folktale motif index as ATU 510B. By comparing so many different iterations of one fairy tale, it is easier to recognize the inherent attitudes concerning women and their place in society contained in this tale. Additionally, reading multiple variants from different centuries lends a perspective on the way that these attitudes changed over the centuries. Each of the thirteenth century texts considered end with their heroines trapped in loveless marriages, much like the seventeenth-century fairy tale, “Donkeyskin,” their direct literary descendant. The nineteenth century texts then present death or marriage as the alternatives for women, while the twentieth century brings the first instance of a heroine choosing for herself. This comparison allows the reader to learn not only what was considered a “happy ending” at the time, but also to gain a better understanding of the means by which a woman could gain agency.

This thesis will argue that the Beowulf Manuscript, which includes the poem Judith, Saxo Grammaticus’s Gesta Danorum, and the Old-Norse-Icelandic Laxdæla saga highlight and examine the tension between the female pagan characters and their Christian authors. These texts also demonstrate that Queenship grew fragile after the spread of Christianity, and women’s power waned in the shift between pre-Christian and Christian Europe.

John Gardner’s Grendel examines the ways in which humans make meaning out of their lives. By changing the original Beowulf monster into a creature who constantly questions the conflicting narratives set before him, Gardner encourages us to confront these tensions also. However, his emphasis on Grendel’s alienation helps us realize that community is essential to creating meaning. Most obviously, community creates relationships that foster a sense of moral obligation between its members, even in the face of the type of uncertainty felt by Grendel. Moreover, community cannot exist without dialogue, which perpetually stimulates the imagination to respond to the tensions contained in a plurality of viewpoints. Gardner encourages us to question narratives which no longer serve us and to use our imagination to tell new stories that cultivate positive ideals such as love and hope.

No description available.