Key Terms: Medieval Romance, Medieval, pastoralism, chivalric romance, heroism
Theoretical Works:
1. Crane, Susan. Animal Encounters: Contacts and Concepts in Medieval Britain, Philidelphia: University of Pennsylnaccia Press, 2012. http://doi.org/10.9783/9780812206302.
2. PUTTER, AD. “PERSONIFICATIONS OF OLD AGE IN MEDIEVAL POETRY: CHARLES D’ORLÉANS AND WILLIAM LANGLAND.” The Review of English Studies, vol. 63, no. 260, Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. 388–409, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23263670.
3. Little, Katherine C. “Medieval Traditions of Writing Rural Labor” Transforming Work: Early Modern Pastoral and Late Medieval Poetry. University of Notre Dame Press, 2013, pp. 15–48, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvpj79zn.5.
4. Fyfe, Daniel. “Beowulf, Sir Gawain, and the Christian Influence in Old Medieval English Poetry.” Philologica Canariensia, vol. 1, 1995, p. 77–.
5. Flannery, M.C. Gower’s blushing bird, Philomela’s transforming face. Postmedieval 8, 35–50 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41280-016-0036-9.
6. Cooper, Helen. The English Romance in Time: Transforming Motifs from Geoffrey of Monmouth to the Death of Shakespeare, Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/dickinson/detail.action?docID=3052657.
7. Putter, A., & Gilbert, J. (Eds.). (2000). The Spirit of Medieval English Popular Romance (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315841335.
8. Crane, Susan. Insular Romance: Politics, Faith, and Culture in Anglo-Norman and Middle English Literature. University of California Press, 1986.
Primary Sources:
1. “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight – York University.” Translated by W.A. Neilson, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, York University, 1999, www.yorku.ca/inpar/sggk_neilson.pdf.
2. The Green Knight. Directed by David Lowery, Ley Line Entertainment, Bron Creative, Wild Atlantic Pictures, Sailor Bear, 2021.
3. “The Squire of Low Degree.” Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature, 2014.
4. Prudentius, Aurelius Clemens. “PRUDENTIUS, Psychomachia.” Edited by James Loeb. Translated by Jeffrey Henderson, Loeb Classical Library, 24 June 2019, https://www.loebclassics.com/view/prudentius-fight_mansoul/1949/pb_LCL387.291.xml.
Academic Journal:
1. The Medieval Review (formerly the Bryn Mawr Medieval Review). Currently published by Indiana University. Publishing since 1993.
Description:
Ever since I read Spencer’s first book of the Faerie Queene in Professor Sider Jost’s The Fairy Way of Writing class, wherein we read medieval and early modern pastoral works, I became fascinated with epic verse. I went to see the film The Green Knight, based on the poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and I was inspired to approach the structure and context of these types of poems through my thesis. In particular, I liked exploring the purpose of the side quests that popped up along the main journey of the protagonist and were seemingly irrelevant to the main journey. They always yielded insight into some aspect of medieval or early modern life, and I want to learn more about the significance of the poem in medieval England through the stores its people wove together.
Updated Description:
The first class I took which focused on Medieval works was Professor Skalak’s Angels and Demons on the Early English Stage class which I took my sophomore year. Reading the plays that inspired so many other literary works, was so fascinating to me. Later, when I read Edmund Spencer’s First Book of the Faerie Queene in Professor Sider Jost’s The Fairy Way of Writing class, wherein we read medieval and early modern pastoral works, I became fascinated with epic verse. I went to see the film The Green Knight, based on the poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and I was inspired to approach the structure and context of these types of poems through my thesis. I liked exploring the purpose of the side quests that popped up along the main journey of the protagonist. They always yielded insight into some aspect of medieval or early modern life, and I want to learn more about the significance of the poem in medieval England through the stores its people wove together. Upon consultation with both professors, I realized that I wanted to focus on Medieval Romances. This led me to explore more specific primary texts as well as re-reading the texts that I had enjoyed before.
