Efforts to examine English romance as a genre are complicated by the wide variety within the corpus. This study proposes a rationale for grouping as a subgenre fourteen romances which have common interest in supernatural figures whose presence motivates definitive assessments of their protagonists. Deploying the characteristic romance diptych structure pivoted around a moment of decisive action, these romances employ a distinctive type of imagery, the romance icons. The dialogue of masculine prowess, iconically represented by the sword and the spear, with the feminine, iconized by the circular, renewable images of rings, wells, and springs, serves as the nucleus for the examination of the role of trouthe as a principle for guiding the interrelationships of sexuality, power, and self-identity. This study focuses on the manner in which the romance imaginary, the tripartite thematic complex of values in which chivalric prowess is both promoted by and rewarded by erotic fulfillment and the desires for social status, property, and feudal power, serves as the paradigmatic metaphor for the fulfillment of the self. The romances examined employ central iconic images in staging the complex interactions of the masculine and feminine which are essential in attaining this goal. Through a process of resignification, these icons become the locus for the development of the theme of trouthe as the essential value for the identification, preservation, and completion of the self. In the English supernatural testing romances, trouthe is seen as the means by which humans can cope, but not control, what is ultimately unfathomable, the complex forces of the self and the Other, signified by the icons of romance. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-04, Section: A, page: 1348. / Major Professor: Eugene Crook. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1995.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_77424 |
| Contributors | Jones, Stephen R., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 431 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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