Middle English Romance as Prototype Genre

Abstract

One of more fascinating histories in study of medieval literatures is history of scholarly attempts to define English as a genre.1 The polemical declarations of scholars, their dodges, embar rassments, sleights of hand, gestures of despair, have often been as compelling as adventures of knight as he overcomes for midable opponents, negotiates unexpected setbacks, puzzles out mar vels beyond scope of his prior experience, in a convoluted and bewildering quest whose object recedes constantly below a misty hori zon. And, since has proven itself inexhaustibly and infinitely expandable, I make no apologies for taking yet another run at mean ing of Middle English romance as a generic term. It will not be last attempt, especially if it is successful, for approach I describe here is intended not to be definitive but to be descriptive, not to provide clo sure but to open up further areas of exploration. At same time, I wish to suggest a system of ideas that may serve as a guide to explo ration, and to point out some implications of this approach for our understanding of medieval English literature. The framework for this approach is loosely based on prototype theory of categorization in cognitive linguistics, and so this paper may serve as a case study for application of prototype theory to literary genres more broadly. I have alluded already to figure of the knight himself, stereo typical protagonist of medieval chivalric romance, but of course problems that this paper addresses would not exist if essence of this medieval genre were so easily recognizable. The definition of English is difficult for a number of reasons. The first is that word itself has had a complex history of polysemy, so that Latin romanus, pertaining to Rome, eventually generated English romantic, with its associations of magic, escapist nostalgia, sexual adventure, and emotional intensity.2 As is well known, texts with which scholars of English are concerned were composed at a time when roman or romaunce could still mean a text in a Romance vernacular (such as French) but could also apply to a type of narrative in any language.