Research master thesis | Literary Studies (research) (MA)
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This thesis aims to shed new light on the intersection between the Gawain cycle and its socio-political environment by focusing primarily on the monsters. By analysing the monsters in the...Show moreThis thesis aims to shed new light on the intersection between the Gawain cycle and its socio-political environment by focusing primarily on the monsters. By analysing the monsters in the narratives as cultural projections of a certain period, this thesis aims to gain insight into the feelings and anxieties that accompanied the tensions between the noble houses during the Wars of the Roses. The monsters in the narratives of the Sir Gawain Cycle challenge the Arthurian Court to reflect on different sides of nobility. As outsiders, or as ‘Others’, they try to warn the knights of the Round Table to change their values and beliefs, and they urge them to live by a type of nobility that is more focused on virtue instead of wealth and status. Each monstrous body presents a different flaw within the ideology of the Round Table, and in turn, comments upon real concerns and anxieties that existed in the late-fifteenth century border region.Show less
