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<p>Medieval fairies are chaotic and perplexing narrative agents—neither humans nor monsters—and
their actions are defined only by a characteristic unpredictability. My dissertation
investigates this fairy chaos, focusing on those moments in a premodern romance when a fairy or
group of fairies intrudes on a human community and, to be blunt, makes a mess. I argue that fairy
disruption of human ways of thinking and being—everything from human corporeality to the
definition of chivalry—is often productive or generative. Each chapter examines how narrative
fairies upset medieval English culture’s operations and rules (including, frequently, the rules of
the narrative itself) in order to question those conventions in the extra-narrative world of the tale’s
audience. Fairy romances, I contend, puzzle and engage their audiences, encouraging readers and
hearers to think about and even challenge the processes of their own society. In this way, my
research explores the interaction between a text and its audience—between fiction and reality—illuminating the ways in which premodern narratives of chaos and disruption encourage readers
and headers to engage in a sustained, ethical consideration of the world.
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| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:purdue.edu/oai:figshare.com:article/7994048 |
| Date | 10 June 2019 |
| Creators | Arielle C McKee (6581312) |
| Source Sets | Purdue University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis |
| Rights | CC BY 4.0 |
| Relation | https://figshare.com/articles/Moral_Challenge_and_Narrative_Structure_Fairy_Chaos_in_Middle_English_Romance/7994048 |
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