This thesis explores some of the different ways that scholars and authors have dealt with the Arthurian legends when working within different cultural contexts. The aim of this thesis is to analyze...Show moreThis thesis explores some of the different ways that scholars and authors have dealt with the Arthurian legends when working within different cultural contexts. The aim of this thesis is to analyze the use of Arthurian legends over time and to compare the relevance of those legends in cultures familiar with the story, such as America, and cultures less familiar with the story, such as Japan. The comparison will be aimed at shedding light on how differences in the interpretations of Arthurian legends between America and Japan reflect, or are caused by, differences in each culture’s familiarity with said legends.Show less
This thesis explores the existence of Old English elegiac elements in Breton Lays from Medieval England. These Breton Lays include Marie de France's "Lanval" and "Chaitivel", as well as "Sir Orfeo"...Show moreThis thesis explores the existence of Old English elegiac elements in Breton Lays from Medieval England. These Breton Lays include Marie de France's "Lanval" and "Chaitivel", as well as "Sir Orfeo". The thesis examines the existence of elegiac elements in Old English poems, and refers to "The Wanderer", "The Seafarer" and "The Ruin" to delineate markers in Old English elegiac poems.Show less
This thesis explores the extent to which Middle English Romances's readers could have been familiar with the botanical matters referenced within these tales. The data has been gathered from 6...Show moreThis thesis explores the extent to which Middle English Romances's readers could have been familiar with the botanical matters referenced within these tales. The data has been gathered from 6 Middle English Romances: Lay le Freine, Sir Thopas, The Knight's Tale, Athelston, The Awntyrs off Arthur, and The Romaunt of the Rose. The research also includes explorations of non-romance texts and archaeobotanical results to discuss the presence of botanical matters in multiple facets of the lives of contemporary readers of the Middle English Romances.Show less
This thesis examines how the poetic works of Thomas Hoccleve and Christopher Smart indicate that each poet may have experienced some form of depression.
This thesis explores twelfth to fourteenth century attitudes toward continuity and change in medieval stories about the Wild Man. Can these stories, dealing with the human-animal border, be seen as...Show moreThis thesis explores twelfth to fourteenth century attitudes toward continuity and change in medieval stories about the Wild Man. Can these stories, dealing with the human-animal border, be seen as an expression of discomfort? Could the Wild Man, like Ovid's poetry, be interpreted as a fascination with hybridity and metamorphosis? Or should we conclude that the Wild Man both frightens and fascinates in the way horror movies simultaneously repel and attract modern man? To provide a contrast to the half-way creature of the Wild Man, this work explores the way of presenting animals in Chaucer’s Parliament of Fowls and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. It then analyses the twelfth century Vita Merlini, and the fourteenth century Sir Orfeo and Ywain and Gawain and argues that these texts, at least partly, express an unease with change and the loss of self.Show less
