Awntyrs Off Research Articles

Landscape in Middle English Romance: The Medieval Imagination and the Natural World

Landscape in Middle English Romance: The Medieval Imagination and the Natural World

Creative Creatures

This essay reads the fifteenth-century Arthurian romance The Awntyrs off Arthur at the Terne Wathelyn (The Adventures of Arthur at Wadelyn Lake) in the context of medieval debates on human creativity as a function of creatureliness. Demonstrating a keen interest in the vulnerability and creatureliness shared by human and non-human animals, the romance encodes nuances of shared affect, vulnerability, and expressive communication across species. Such considerations, here and in select Arthurian texts, poignantly undermine any presumed human-animal divide.

Beginning and Ending with Arthur: Reading Arthurian Romance 'Compilationally' in Two Fifteenth-Century Manuscripts

That medieval compilers collected multiple Arthurian romances is shown by the remarkable survival of The Awntyrs off Arthure. How this text was used and how it has survived provides insight into the wider literary and manuscript culture of Middle English romance and contextualizes the triumph of Malory's Le Morte Darthur. (RP)

Fluid Boundaries in The Awntyrs off Arthure and Sir Isumbras

Encounters with water shape the Middle English romances of The Awntyrs off Arthure and Sir Isumbras. In the latter, rivers and the ‘Greek Sea’ serve to distinguish separate sections of the narrative: the river marks the point at which the titular hero’s family unit begins to break down, while the beach of the sea marks the lowest point of his social power. Yet his later traversal of the Greek Sea itself allows him to reassemble his family and reclaim his aristocratic power. In Awntyrs, the Tarn Wathelene (or Wadling) ties the actions of the romance’s first episode onto a specific spot in the real-world English landscape, while connecting the text to a number of other Arthurian romances that also mention or take place near the tarn. This article, then, argues that the waterscapes in these two texts illustrate a late-medieval understanding of tarns, rivers, and seas as explicitly alien, yet intimately physical embodiments of divine power in the natural world. Taken together, these poems—one a metrical romance, the other alliterative—show how interests in waterscapes crossed boundaries within the muddy genre of romance itself, and reveal that water upsets such human categories as family and property. Tarns, rivers, and seas turn human bodies, instead, into their possessions; the disturbing experience of that dehumanizing process should, these texts imply, wear the world, its history, and its bonds away, until even the greatest knights or ladies are left alone with watery forms beyond the pale of human understanding.

‘Under a holte so hore’: Noble Waste in The Awntyrs off Arthure

This article engages ecocriticsm and discard studies to argue that the excessive behaviors of the aristocracy in The Awntyrs off Arthure precipitate material and metaphorical waste. Their wastefulness, through overuse and erasure of surrounding ‘natureculture,’ exposes the unsustainability of the court and, debatably, Arthurian romance as a genre.

Reading the Diptych: The Awntyrs off Arthure , Medium, and Memory

Drawing on the psychology of reading and psychoanalytical notions of the uncanny and cryptonymy, this essay argues that the Awntyrs off Arthure resists the cognitive processes involved in reading narrative. Through a spectral encounter that is forgotten yet remembered, the poem haunts its audience and casts a critical shadow over the Arthurian court.

Randy P. Schiff Revivalist Fantasy: Alliterative Verse and Nationalist Literary HistoryRevivalist Fantasy: Alliterative Verse and Nationalist Literary History. Randy P. Schiff. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2011. Pp. ix+276.

<i>Randy P. Schiff</i> Revivalist Fantasy: Alliterative Verse and Nationalist Literary History<i>Revivalist Fantasy: Alliterative Verse and Nationalist Literary History</i>. Randy P. Schiff. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2011. Pp. ix+276.

Ann W. Astell and J. A. Jackson, Levinas and Medieval Literature: The “Difficult Reading” of English and Rabbinic TextsLevinas and Medieval Literature: The “Difficult Reading” of English and Rabbinic Texts. Edited by Ann W. Astell and J. A. Jackson. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press. Pp. x+374.

<i>Ann W. Astell and J. A. Jackson</i>, Levinas and Medieval Literature: The “Difficult Reading” of English and Rabbinic Texts<i>Levinas and Medieval Literature: The “Difficult Reading” of English and Rabbinic Texts</i>. Edited by Ann W. Astell and J. A. Jackson. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press. Pp. x+374.

Revivalist Fantasy: Alliterative Verse and Nationalist Literary History (review)

Reviewed by: Revivalist Fantasy: Alliterative Verse and Nationalist Literary History Mary Kate Hurley Randy P. Schiff , Revivalist Fantasy: Alliterative Verse and Nationalist Literary History. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2011. Pp. 276. ISBN: 978-0-8142-1152-6. $47.95 In Revivalist Fantasy: Alliterative Verse and Nationalist Literary History, Randy P. Schiff argues that the 'Alliterative Revival'—what scholars traditionally argue is a re-emergence of the Old English alliterative style of verse in the fourteenth century—is a 'medievalist rather than medieval phenomenon' (2). Schiff balances his analysis between the alliterative poems he examines and the Alliterative Revivalists who interpret them, tracing both the critical history of the form and its (possibly obfuscatory) effects on the interpretation of the texts at its center. For Schiff, scholars in Alliterative Revivalism adhere to a literary historical narrative of a prosodic last stand of a northern, neo-Saxon, nostalgic alliterative verse form against a southern, Francophilic, rhyming, 'Chaucerian' poetic style. In Revivalist analyses, this Chaucerian style ultimately succeeded in blending monolithically understood 'English' and 'French' literary sensibilities. Such a view of alliterative verse, according to Schiff, constitutes a powerful but fictive critical frame that 'depends upon the barbarization of Saxon identity, whose backwardness is used to highlight the English ascent to a racially hybrid modernity' (5). In organizing his work, Schiff eschews the totalizing narratives that he argues characterize other accounts of alliterative poetry. The introduction and first chapter lay out the stakes of the argument, defining Alliterative Revivalism and tracing its roots in nineteenth-century nationalist discourses as well as its continued effects on modern literary analysis of alliterative poetry. The four remaining chapters examine the specific results of Alliterative Revivalism in the historical reception of particular texts while consciously avoiding a reliance on a single explanatory model of poetic form as he provides his own alternative readings. Schiff carefully outlines the methods by which a 'Revivalist insistence on a unifying aesthetics distracts from poets' contemporary concerns, redirecting attention either to a Saxon past or the fantasy of an organized, national movement' (35). His analysis of texts lays bare the resulting impoverishment of our modern understanding of alliterative poetry. Schiff 's argument demonstrates an impressive breadth of theoretical knowledge, supplementing his careful historicization of the poetry with a range of frames that might help scholars reassess alliterative verse, including transnationalism, sovereignty, gender, postcolonialism, and media theory. Each chapter of Revivalist Fantasy engages both Alliterative Revivalism and the other possible readings that it obscures. In his analysis of Guillaume de Palerne and its English translation (chapter two), Schiff examines the Revivalist emphasis on the equation of language and ethnicity. Situating the text in its historical milieu of increased socio-economic mobility, Schiff argues that rather than a simple dissemination of a 'French' narrative of animal transformations in an English literary translation, William of Palerne participates in a 'Western consolidation' that links the English and French texts in a shared project of reinforcing the boundary that marked off the elite from the lower classes (71). In the case of Sir Gawain and the Green [End Page 99] Knight (chapter three), the martial emphasis of Alliterative Revivalism 'conflat[es] Morgan and the Lady [Bertilak]' as doubles and as a result 'foregrounds male-male conflict' (78). Schiff 's corrective reading situates Morgan as a regional overlord figure who provokes the Arthurian court in an attempt to consolidate her own power. Rather than figuring as a typical Loathly Lady, then, Morgan 'seeks to drive away the knight, asserting sole control over her domestic space' (95). Schiff 's study of three other Arthurian texts, the Awntyrs off Arthure, Golagros and Gawane, and the Alliterative Morte Arthure (chapter four), demonstrates the transnational competition for dominance unearthed when Revivalism's emphasis on a proto-modern nation is relinquished in favor of a careful reading of the operations of imperial impulses in the texts. Finally, he argues that the 'center-periphery logic' of Revivalism ignores the 'simultaneously rural and metropolitan culture' that produced the Piers Plowman tradition (134, chapter five). Schiff suggests that the Langlandian works participate in 'recursive' analysis (a term drawn from N. Katherine Hayles), demonstrating 'self-reflexive treatment of material textuality' by engaging with writing technologies available...

Inglewood Forest in Two Middle English Romances

“The Awntyrs off Arthure at the Terne Watheleyne” and “The Weddyng of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnall” both take place in a historical royal forest, Inglewood. The term ‘felle’ in “The Awntyrs” is re-intepreted here to refer to a forest that has been coppiced, a woodland-pasture. Both poems describe romance forest that was also recognizable to the poems’ original audiences as managed woodland.

RALPH HANNA (ed.), The Knightly Tale of Golagros and Gawane. From materials collected by the late W. R. J. Barron.

THIS is the first full critical edition of the remarkably fine alliterative poem Golagros and Gawane, surviving in a single witness from an early edition by Chepman and Myllar, printed in Edinburgh in 1508. The copy is bound into a booklet, today National Library of Scotland, Advocates Library 19.1.16, together with ten other short printed books produced by the same press. The poem is characterized by its difficult language and complex metrical structure, organized in thirteen-line stanzas, composed of nine alliterating long lines followed by a ‘wheel’ of four short lines, and has remained one of the most challenging alliterative works for editors and readers alike. With Ralph Hanna, working from the notes of the Late W. R. J. Barron, the poem has found an editor to match its sophistication. Hanna is an expert in all things alliterative, and can illuminate this difficult poem with his previous experience as an editor of alliterative works, such as the Siege of Jerusalem or The Awntyrs off Arthure, the latter sharing Golagros’ thirteen-line stanza form.

The Awntyrs off Arthure, an Economy of Pain

<i>The Awntyrs off Arthure</i>, an Economy of Pain

Ghostly Mothers and Fated Fathers: Gender and Genre in The Awntyrs off Arthure

Personified as the ghost of Guenevere's dead mother, the past disrupts a present in the Awntyrs off Arthure to convey a warning about an ominous future to an unlikely subject: Guenevere herself. This interaction between mother and daughter functions as an important commentary on the inevitable limitations associated with any conception of history, temporal stability, or power.

Borderland Subversions: Anti-imperial Energies in The Awntyrs off Arthure and Golagros and Gawane

Previous articleNext article No AccessBorderland Subversions: Anti-imperial Energies in The Awntyrs off Arthure and Golagros and GawaneRandy P. SchiffRandy P. Schiff Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Speculum Volume 84, Number 3JULY 2009 The journal of the Medieval Academy of America Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1017/S0038713400209329 Views: 99Total views on this site Citations: 7Citations are reported from Crossref © 2009 The Medieval Academy of AmericaPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Andrew Murray Richmond Fluid Boundaries in The Awntyrs off Arthure and Sir Isumbras, Open Library of Humanities 4, no.11 (Apr 2018).https://doi.org/10.16995/olh.225Randy P. Schiff Awntyrs off Arthure at the Terne Wathelyn, (Aug 2017): 1–2.https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118396957.wbemlb013Randy P. Schiff Golagros and Gawane, (Aug 2017): 1–2.https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118396957.wbemlb015Joseph Taylor Sovereignty, Oath, and the Profane Life in the Avowing of Arthur, Exemplaria 25, no.11 (Nov 2013): 36–58.https://doi.org/10.1179/1041257312Z.00000000024Mark P. Bruce, Katherine H. Terrell Introduction: Writing Across the Borders, (Jan 2012): 1–14.https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137108913_1Kylie Murray Passing the Book: The Scottish Shaping of Chaucer’s Dream States in Bodleian Library, Ms Arch. Selden. B.24., (Jan 2012): 121–139.https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137108913_8Joseph Taylor Chaucer’s Uncanny Regionalism: Rereading the North in The Reeve’s Tale, The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 109, no.44 (Oct 2010): 468–489.https://doi.org/10.5406/jenglgermphil.109.4.0468

The Problem of "Rondolesette Halle" in The Awntyrs off Arthure

The Problem of "Rondolesette Halle" in The Awntyrs off Arthure Andrew R. Walkling The Middle English poem The Awntyrs off Arthure at the Terne Wathelyn is known for a number of interesting features, including its intricate alliterative and rhyming stanzaic system, its enigmatic bipartite structure, and its extensive and confident utilization of local place-names from northwestern England and southwestern Scotland, particularly within Inglewood Forest, the former royal hunting preserve situated south of Carlisle.1 In this last area, much work has been done to identify the many local place-names inserted by the anonymous author into his story, and to understand the roles that these locations play in the poem's narrative.2 The principal action of the Awntyrs takes place at three sites. In the poem's first half (lines 1-338), the court is hunting near the Tarn Wadling (a now-defunct lake widely associated in the Middle Ages with spectral apparitions3) when Queen Guinevere and Sir Gawain are [End Page 105] confronted by the ghost of Guinevere's mother, who condemns the Arthurian court's excessive pride and foretells its eventual downfall. Shaken by this experience, Guinevere and Gawain are rejoined by the hunting party, which adjourns to "Rondolesette Halle" for a feast (lines 339-474), at which point the second half of the poem begins. As the meal is getting underway, a strange knight, Sir Galeron of Galloway, appears and announces his intention to win back by battle lands that Arthur has unjustly seized from him and given to Sir Gawain. Arthur agrees that if Galeron will wait until the following morning, when a suitable champion and field of engagement can be found, he may have his trial. In the meantime, the knight is led to a pavilion where he is clothed, fed, and cared for in the best tradition of Arthurian hospitality. Once the feast has ended, Arthur confers with his knights, whereupon Gawain volunteers to fight Galeron, and the following morning, after the saying of Mass, the court leaves "Rondolesette Halle" for "Plumton Land," where the battle is held (lines 475-689). After a brutal contest that produces no clear victor, the two knights are reconciled, and the court returns to Carlisle and the Round Table for a brief coda (lines 690-715) in which gifts are distributed, Sir Galeron weds his lady and joins the Round Table, and Queen Guinevere appoints masses to be said for the soul of her mother. While two of the poem's three main locales, the Tarn Wadling and "Plumton Land" (commonly identified with Plumpton Wall, site of the ancient Roman fort of Voreda) are unproblematic, the third has been the source of considerable uncertainty. The present article will examine the location and physical characteristics of this third site, "Rondolesette Halle," and will investigate the nature of the events that take place there in the poem and its role in the poem's larger structural and conceptual framework. The term regularized here as "Rondolesette Halle" appears only once in The Awntyrs off Arthure, at line 337, the moment at which Arthur and his court leave behind the terrifying experience of the Tarn Wadling and ride to "Rondolesette Halle" to partake of "þe suppere" (line 338). It is at the ensuing feast that Sir Galeron appears to demand the return of his lands in southern Scotland, thereby setting in motion the events of [End Page 106] the poem's second half. The four surviving manuscripts4 of the Awntyrs give differing readings of the line in question, as follows: MS T: Wente to randolfe sett haulle MS L: Rode to Randilsete halle MS J: þay wente to Rondall sete hall MS D: Went to Rondoles halle The line is emended by Ralph Hanna, in his 1974 edition of the poem, to read: "Rayked to Rondolesette Halle," although Hanna subsequently abandoned the overly interventionist "Rayked" in favor of the more editorially supportable "Went."5 As previous commentators have noted, the poem gives no hint as to where "Rondolesette" is meant to be, nor what sort of hall would have been located there. From the context of the poem, we may assume that it is some distance from the...

The Awntyrs off Arthure , Caerphilly, Oysterlow, and Wexford

References in The Awntyrs off Arthure to Kirfre, Vlstur Hall, Wayford, and Waterford have puzzled scholars, but they may be identified as Caerphilly and Oysterlow in South Wales, and Wexford and Waterford in Ireland. If so, they provide evidence to associate the poem with the young duke of York (d. 1460), who was linked with the first three of these places, either directly or via his guardian.

THE AWNTYRS OFF ARTHURE, CYWRYD OF KENT, AND LAVERY BURN

THE AWNTYRS OFF ARTHURE, CYWRYD OF KENT, AND LAVERY BURN

REVIEWS

REVIEWS Get access The Awntyrs off Arthure at the Terne Wathelyn. Edited by RALPH HANNA III Pp x+190 (Manchester Old and Middle English Texts) Manchester University Press, New York Barnes & Noble Books, 1974 £4 20 net A. J. BLISS A. J. BLISS Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Review of English Studies, Volume XXVII, Issue 108, November 1976, Pages 455–456, https://doi.org/10.1093/res/XXVII.108.455 Published: 01 November 1976