Romance, Wall Paintings and Vault Bosses : Le Bone Florence of Rome in Context

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Anonymous: Octavian

An encyclopedia entry on the Middle English romance Octavian

Romancing the ordeal : representations of pain and suffering in Middle English metrical romances

This thesis concentrates on the representations of pain and suffering in forty-five Middle English metrical romances. This excludes certain Arthurian and non-anonymous material. It comprises an introduction, five chapters, and an index of themes related to suffering, categorizing the suffering theme in metrical romances.The introduction deals with the definitions, authorship, audience, classification, manuscript contexts and indexes of metrical romances, so as to contextualize the current work. The first chapter categorizes the villains and focuses on the reasons for villainy and the nature of domestic and stranger villains, who are inherently evil, have reasons to be villainous, or who act as a catalyst to initiate villainy, distinguishing them from good villains who victimize unintentionally. It also examines how villainies are punished. The second and the third chapters concentrate on female and male victims respectively, and explore the nature and reactions of victims, how victims respond to their ordeals (either in a submissive or resistant fashion) and the representations of self-victimizers. The functions of domestic and stranger relievers of suffering are also considered. The fourth chapter discusses how Middle English metrical romances make use of journeys in the form of enforced exile, self-exile, quest and pilgrimage. The fifth chapter examines how divine interferences and supernatural agents function in the representations of pain and suffering, while paying attention to the significance of dreams in relation to suffering, and the representations of ordeals in the fairy world.The index categorizes the conventional romance characters and circumstances with particular relation to the representations of suffering. It is also intended to serve as a research tool for scholars studying ordeals in Middle English romances, or romances in general

Revealing otherness : a comparative examination of French and English medieval hagiographical romance

This dissertation is an analysis of three hagiographical romances written in France around the thirteenth century and later adapted into English. The texts are Ami et Amile, Robert le Diable and Florence de Rome and their English counterparts Amis and Amiloun, Sir Gowther and Le bone Florence of Rome. All six texts have been understudied, with the possible exception of Ami et Amile. They are linked in many ways, some thematic, some generic. They have all caused confusion and arguments as to what their genre is (Epic? Saint’s life? Romance? A combination of two or three genres?) and feature the defining notions of otherness, exile and penance. In spite of appearances, this work shows that the French and English authors prove to have quite different takes on the same stories. Drawing on Lacanian psychoanalysis and postcolonial theory, the chapters discuss the presence of otherness in the texts, in all its manifestations and offer new readings of the poems as well as possible solutions to the difficult question of genre in the middle ages. The many shapes taken by the other/Other (physical and emotional otherness; hybridity and gender) are exposed and utilised to uncover the meanings and ideological complexities of these multidimensional poems. This approach also reveals that the English texts propose a more conservative reading of common material than did their French originals. It is therefore suggested that the generic tendencies of these medieval texts be correlated with the importance of the Other in the respective redactions of the tales. Reading without consideration of these two factors produces a lopsided comparative view, while reading with both in mind leads to a better appreciation of rewriting and adaptation in the Middle Ages