Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-p566r Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-29T15:32:08.230Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Reading Westeros: George R. R. Martin's Multi-Layered Medievalisms

from II - Interpretations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 September 2017

Carol Jamison
Affiliation:
Professor of Medieval Literature and Linguistics at Armstrong State University
Get access

Summary

Hans Robert Jauss defines modernity as “the self-understanding of our era from the past.” For scholars of medievalism, modernity typically refers to “the contemporary perspective from which a medievalist writer ponders, and attempts to create, a fictional Middle Ages.” Most assume that medievalism is “a modern invention.” However, in his preface to the 1996 edition of Studies in Medievalism, Leslie Workman defines it as “the continuing process of creating the Middle Ages.” Even some medieval writers, including Chrétien de Troyes, the Pearl poet, and Sir Thomas Malory, created a fictional Middle Ages as a method of self-understanding the contemporary concerns of their era. In the Jaussian sense, these writers of Arthurian romance might themselves be considered to write from “modern” perspectives, and their literary creations, as Nicholas Haydock points out, could be considered medievalism (or medievalistics, in Haydock's terminology). In other words, medievalism is not necessarily a post-medieval construct. Rather, it is a process of engaging with a fictionalized medieval past, and this process is possible not only within recent medievalist texts, but also within texts from the Middle Ages. In A Song of Ice and Fire, George R. R. Martin embraces the narrative strategies of Arthurian romance writers, particularly Chrétien, the Pearl poet, and Malory, complicating our notions that medievalist narrative is dramatically different from medieval narrative. In his creation of a complex, multi-layered world, Martin vividly illustrates how both modern and medieval populations might create a medieval past for self-understanding.

According to Tom Shippey, “no literary work of medievalism can avoid some interaction with modernity.” Medievalist texts, either intentionally or not, reflect the contemporary concerns of their authors, but so do some medieval texts. The romance writers noted above intentionally drew upon pre-existing legends to create a fictionalized past that served to illustrate their contemporary concerns.

Type
Chapter
Information
Studies in Medievalism XXVI
Ecomedievalism
, pp. 131 - 142
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2017

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×