Romance Rewritten: The Evolution of Middle English Romance; A Tribute to Helen Cooper ed. by Elizabeth Archibald, Megan G. Leitch, and Corinne Saunders

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 325-329
Author(s):  
Ivana Djordjević
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Middle English Romance

‘He ne wiste nother of evyll ne gude’: A Prelapsarian Perceval

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-127
Author(s):  
Susanne Hafner
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Sexual Desire ◽  
Chretien De Troyes ◽  
Wolfram Von Eschenbach ◽  
English Version ◽  
Middle English Romance ◽  
Chrétien De Troyes

AbstractDeparting from the observation that the Middle English romance of Sir Perceval of Galles quotes from Genesis at two crucial moments, this study provides a coherent reading of the text, explaining some of its idiosyncrasies and triangulating it with the versions of Chrétien de Troyes and Wolfram von Eschenbach. What distinguishes the Middle English version from the continental texts are its purposeful absences, i. e. that which the author chooses to abbreviate or leave out altogether. The result is the story of a prelapsarian creature who stumbles through an Edenic landscape where time and mortality have been suspended and individual culpability does not exist. Sir Perceval’s non-existent biblical knowledge, blocked by his mother and ultimately brought to its end by a literal fall from his horse, leaves him invincible, ungendered and immortal. It also serves to explain his unapologetic violence as well as his complete lack of sexual desire. This bold experiment cannot last – Sir Perceval does eventually discover knighthood, masculinity and mortality. Unfortunately, these three are inseparably linked: being a knight, being a man and being dead are one and the same thing in Sir Perceval’s universe.

The Popularity of Middle English Romance

1978 ◽  
Vol 73 (2) ◽  
pp. 372
Author(s):  
Dieter Mehl ◽  
Velma Bourgeois Richmond
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Middle English Romance
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