9 results
1 - Malory and the Stock Phrase
- Edited by Megan G. Leitch, Cardiff University, Kevin S. Whetter, Acadia University, Canada
-
- Book:
- Arthurian Literature XXXVII
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 15 September 2022
- Print publication:
- 17 June 2022, pp 7-22
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
The Boss: ‘The truth is, Alisande, these archaics are a little too simple; the vocabulary is too limited, and so, by consequence, descriptions suffer in the matter of variety; … this throws about them a certain air of the monotonous’.
– Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's CourtMark Twain first encountered Sir Thomas Malory's Morte Darthur in 1884, in a Rochester bookstore. It ‘is the quaintest and sweetest of all books’, he wrote his daughter later that year, and he told a friend in 1906 that it was ‘one of the most beautiful things ever written in English’. In 1888 Twain included Malory in a list of his nine favorite authors. At the same time, in his Connecticut Yankee (published 1889), Twain had a lot of fun parodying Malory's ‘limited’ and ‘monotonous’ vocabulary.
Mark Twain is not the only commentator to have fallen into self-contradiction after reading Malory's Morte. In literary analysis, Malory's stock phrases have often been dismissed as stale and repetitive. A. C. Baugh, for example, described them as ‘the innumerable formulas and commonplaces – knights stiff in strife, ladies white as foam, swords that well could bite … [that were] common to every author of a mediaeval romance. They were in every one's ears, known to every one who heard romances read or recited. Chaucer knew them well enough to satirize them’. Having noted that stock phrases common in English romance show up also in the Paston letters, P. J. C. Field concluded that the phrases were part of the vernacular of the day and that Malory used them as the ‘readiest and easiest way’ to tell his story.
At the same time, like Twain, scholars have acknowledged the beauty of Malory's prose. Field has commented, for example, that Malory's style ‘is the result of a complex of elements too heterogeneous and irregular in their combination to be the results of conscious art; but the careless yet subtle amalgam into which its elements have been fused will bear comparison with the greatest and most distinctive styles in English prose’.
How can a book be so great if its language is endlessly repetitive and lacks conscious art? The answer involves a closer look at how Malory deploys his stock phrases – a look that will reveal a system behind this repetitiveness that drives much of the book's impact.
“Withinne a Paved Parlour”: Criseyde and Domestic Reading in a City under Siege
-
- By Joyce Coleman, Rudolph C. Bambas Professor of Medieval English Literature and Culture in the English Department at the University of Oklahoma.
- Edited by Martin Chase, Maryanne Kowaleski
-
- Book:
- Reading and Writing in Medieval England
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 21 June 2019
- Print publication:
- 15 March 2019, pp 9-38
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
When Boccaccio's Pandaro makes his first visit to Criseida as go-between for Troiolo, the text says only that “he made his way to where Criseida abode. And she, seeing him coming to her, stood up and greeted him from afar, and Pandarus her. And, taking her by the hand, he led her with him into an apartment” (sen gì ver dove Criseida stava; / la qual, veggendo lui a sé venire, / levata in pie, di lungi il salutava, / e Pandar lei, cui per la man pigliata / in una loggia seco l'ha menata). There the two of them talk and joke, until Pandaro gradually reveals that Troiolo is in love with her. After much discussion, Criseida agrees to accept Troiolo's love.
When Chaucer's Pandarus makes his first visit to Criseyde as go-between for Troilus, he asks some of “hire folk” where she is, and is directed to her “paved parlour,” where she and two of her ladies are sitting, listening to a maiden read aloud to them. Pandarus and Criseyde do an elaborate little dance around the book, both verbally and spatially, until they fall into a conversation that starts with Criseyde asking for news of the siege and then is guided by Pandarus into mutual praise of Troilus’ successes in defending Troy. Next Criseyde wants to consult Pandarus concerning her estates; her people draw away as the two sit down together, and Pandarus turns the conversation back to his friend. After much discussion, Criseyde agrees merely to be nice to Troilus – to “maken him good chere.”
Given her social standing, Boccaccio's Criseida would have had a household of attendants and servants around her, just like her English counterpart, but it was Chaucer's choice to make these “folk” visible, as a mini-throng through whom Pandarus must navigate in order to get Criseyde alone. Chaucer also invented the reading in the paved parlor, and in doing so, not only complicated Pandarus’ task of proxy seduction but also inaugurated a complex exploration of the nature of reading, of women, and of women reading.
Authorizing the Story: Guillaume de Machaut as Doctor of Love
- Edited by Laurie Postlewate, Senior Lecturer, Department of French, Barnard College, Kathryn A. Duys, Associate Professor, Department of English and Foreign Languages, University of St Francis, Elizabeth Emery, Professor of French, Montclair State University
-
- Book:
- Telling the Story in the Middle Ages
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 17 June 2021
- Print publication:
- 18 June 2015, pp 141-154
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
I first met Timmie Vitz in 1992, when as a graduate student I gave a paper on ‘Aural History’ in a Modern Language Association session that she and Nancy Freeman Regalado had organized. Timmie and Nancy swept me up into their joint passion for the study of medieval narrative performance, and I have benefited immeasurably, both professionally and personally, ever since. Timmie has been an endlessly kind and encouraging mentor and friend, her scholarship an inspiration, her pedagogical and website innovations a marvel. I have been very lucky to know Timmie and to have been her friend and admirer all these years.
Timmie's work has established the importance of ‘orality and performance’ in medieval romance. The fiddling, singing jongleurs she has evoked from the recorded texts of the twelfth through early fourteenth centuries find their corresponding visual texts in the performers depicted in many medieval manuscripts. In the first quarter of the fourteenth century, for example, a minstrel was shown standing outside a hall in which King Arthur feasts with his court (see Fig. 1). The liminal position of this figure seems deliberately to suggest both the storyteller who could have entertained the feasters in the tale, and his counterpart in real life, who would recite the story of Arthur's feast to a hall full of listeners.
By the time this picture was painted, performance had already begun to broaden out from the professional minstrel to include the literate household member who would prelect a written text to an audience (that is, read it aloud). The earliest visual metatexts associated with such material could have simply switched the performing minstrel for a clerk, servitor or family member reading to a group. But that didn't happen. Instead, the presence of the book seems to have directed illuminators to an entirely different iconographic tradition, that of academic lecturers prelecting to students. This essay concerns a particularly striking example of that hybridized imagery, one that imbues authorship with the auctoritas of the university master while empowering the lay audience with the freedom of vernacular patronage. In doing so, it elides didacticism with entertainment and lecture with story.
Contributors
-
- By Rose Teteki Abbey, K. C. Abraham, David Tuesday Adamo, LeRoy H. Aden, Efrain Agosto, Victor Aguilan, Gillian T. W. Ahlgren, Charanjit Kaur AjitSingh, Dorothy B E A Akoto, Giuseppe Alberigo, Daniel E. Albrecht, Ruth Albrecht, Daniel O. Aleshire, Urs Altermatt, Anand Amaladass, Michael Amaladoss, James N. Amanze, Lesley G. Anderson, Thomas C. Anderson, Victor Anderson, Hope S. Antone, María Pilar Aquino, Paula Arai, Victorio Araya Guillén, S. Wesley Ariarajah, Ellen T. Armour, Brett Gregory Armstrong, Atsuhiro Asano, Naim Stifan Ateek, Mahmoud Ayoub, John Alembillah Azumah, Mercedes L. García Bachmann, Irena Backus, J. Wayne Baker, Mieke Bal, Lewis V. Baldwin, William Barbieri, António Barbosa da Silva, David Basinger, Bolaji Olukemi Bateye, Oswald Bayer, Daniel H. Bays, Rosalie Beck, Nancy Elizabeth Bedford, Guy-Thomas Bedouelle, Chorbishop Seely Beggiani, Wolfgang Behringer, Christopher M. Bellitto, Byard Bennett, Harold V. Bennett, Teresa Berger, Miguel A. Bernad, Henley Bernard, Alan E. Bernstein, Jon L. Berquist, Johannes Beutler, Ana María Bidegain, Matthew P. Binkewicz, Jennifer Bird, Joseph Blenkinsopp, Dmytro Bondarenko, Paulo Bonfatti, Riet en Pim Bons-Storm, Jessica A. Boon, Marcus J. Borg, Mark Bosco, Peter C. Bouteneff, François Bovon, William D. Bowman, Paul S. Boyer, David Brakke, Richard E. Brantley, Marcus Braybrooke, Ian Breward, Ênio José da Costa Brito, Jewel Spears Brooker, Johannes Brosseder, Nicholas Canfield Read Brown, Robert F. Brown, Pamela K. Brubaker, Walter Brueggemann, Bishop Colin O. Buchanan, Stanley M. Burgess, Amy Nelson Burnett, J. Patout Burns, David B. Burrell, David Buttrick, James P. Byrd, Lavinia Byrne, Gerado Caetano, Marcos Caldas, Alkiviadis Calivas, William J. Callahan, Salvatore Calomino, Euan K. Cameron, William S. Campbell, Marcelo Ayres Camurça, Daniel F. Caner, Paul E. Capetz, Carlos F. Cardoza-Orlandi, Patrick W. Carey, Barbara Carvill, Hal Cauthron, Subhadra Mitra Channa, Mark D. Chapman, James H. Charlesworth, Kenneth R. Chase, Chen Zemin, Luciano Chianeque, Philip Chia Phin Yin, Francisca H. Chimhanda, Daniel Chiquete, John T. Chirban, Soobin Choi, Robert Choquette, Mita Choudhury, Gerald Christianson, John Chryssavgis, Sejong Chun, Esther Chung-Kim, Charles M. A. Clark, Elizabeth A. Clark, Sathianathan Clarke, Fred Cloud, John B. Cobb, W. Owen Cole, John A Coleman, John J. Collins, Sylvia Collins-Mayo, Paul K. Conkin, Beth A. Conklin, Sean Connolly, Demetrios J. Constantelos, Michael A. Conway, Paula M. Cooey, Austin Cooper, Michael L. Cooper-White, Pamela Cooper-White, L. William Countryman, Sérgio Coutinho, Pamela Couture, Shannon Craigo-Snell, James L. Crenshaw, David Crowner, Humberto Horacio Cucchetti, Lawrence S. Cunningham, Elizabeth Mason Currier, Emmanuel Cutrone, Mary L. Daniel, David D. Daniels, Robert Darden, Rolf Darge, Isaiah Dau, Jeffry C. Davis, Jane Dawson, Valentin Dedji, John W. de Gruchy, Paul DeHart, Wendy J. Deichmann Edwards, Miguel A. De La Torre, George E. Demacopoulos, Thomas de Mayo, Leah DeVun, Beatriz de Vasconcellos Dias, Dennis C. Dickerson, John M. Dillon, Luis Miguel Donatello, Igor Dorfmann-Lazarev, Susanna Drake, Jonathan A. Draper, N. Dreher Martin, Otto Dreydoppel, Angelyn Dries, A. J. Droge, Francis X. D'Sa, Marilyn Dunn, Nicole Wilkinson Duran, Rifaat Ebied, Mark J. Edwards, William H. Edwards, Leonard H. Ehrlich, Nancy L. Eiesland, Martin Elbel, J. Harold Ellens, Stephen Ellingson, Marvin M. Ellison, Robert Ellsberg, Jean Bethke Elshtain, Eldon Jay Epp, Peter C. Erb, Tassilo Erhardt, Maria Erling, Noel Leo Erskine, Gillian R. Evans, Virginia Fabella, Michael A. Fahey, Edward Farley, Margaret A. Farley, Wendy Farley, Robert Fastiggi, Seena Fazel, Duncan S. Ferguson, Helwar Figueroa, Paul Corby Finney, Kyriaki Karidoyanes FitzGerald, Thomas E. FitzGerald, John R. Fitzmier, Marie Therese Flanagan, Sabina Flanagan, Claude Flipo, Ronald B. Flowers, Carole Fontaine, David Ford, Mary Ford, Stephanie A. Ford, Jim Forest, William Franke, Robert M. Franklin, Ruth Franzén, Edward H. Friedman, Samuel Frouisou, Lorelei F. Fuchs, Jojo M. Fung, Inger Furseth, Richard R. Gaillardetz, Brandon Gallaher, China Galland, Mark Galli, Ismael García, Tharscisse Gatwa, Jean-Marie Gaudeul, Luis María Gavilanes del Castillo, Pavel L. Gavrilyuk, Volney P. Gay, Metropolitan Athanasios Geevargis, Kondothra M. George, Mary Gerhart, Simon Gikandi, Maurice Gilbert, Michael J. Gillgannon, Verónica Giménez Beliveau, Terryl Givens, Beth Glazier-McDonald, Philip Gleason, Menghun Goh, Brian Golding, Bishop Hilario M. Gomez, Michelle A. Gonzalez, Donald K. Gorrell, Roy Gottfried, Tamara Grdzelidze, Joel B. Green, Niels Henrik Gregersen, Cristina Grenholm, Herbert Griffiths, Eric W. Gritsch, Erich S. Gruen, Christoffer H. Grundmann, Paul H. Gundani, Jon P. Gunnemann, Petre Guran, Vidar L. Haanes, Jeremiah M. Hackett, Getatchew Haile, Douglas John Hall, Nicholas Hammond, Daphne Hampson, Jehu J. Hanciles, Barry Hankins, Jennifer Haraguchi, Stanley S. Harakas, Anthony John Harding, Conrad L. Harkins, J. William Harmless, Marjory Harper, Amir Harrak, Joel F. Harrington, Mark W. Harris, Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Van A. Harvey, R. Chris Hassel, Jione Havea, Daniel Hawk, Diana L. Hayes, Leslie Hayes, Priscilla Hayner, S. Mark Heim, Simo Heininen, Richard P. Heitzenrater, Eila Helander, David Hempton, Scott H. Hendrix, Jan-Olav Henriksen, Gina Hens-Piazza, Carter Heyward, Nicholas J. Higham, David Hilliard, Norman A. Hjelm, Peter C. Hodgson, Arthur Holder, M. Jan Holton, Dwight N. Hopkins, Ronnie Po-chia Hsia, Po-Ho Huang, James Hudnut-Beumler, Jennifer S. Hughes, Leonard M. Hummel, Mary E. Hunt, Laennec Hurbon, Mark Hutchinson, Susan E. Hylen, Mary Beth Ingham, H. Larry Ingle, Dale T. Irvin, Jon Isaak, Paul John Isaak, Ada María Isasi-Díaz, Hans Raun Iversen, Margaret C. Jacob, Arthur James, Maria Jansdotter-Samuelsson, David Jasper, Werner G. Jeanrond, Renée Jeffery, David Lyle Jeffrey, Theodore W. Jennings, David H. Jensen, Robin Margaret Jensen, David Jobling, Dale A. Johnson, Elizabeth A. Johnson, Maxwell E. Johnson, Sarah Johnson, Mark D. Johnston, F. Stanley Jones, James William Jones, John R. Jones, Alissa Jones Nelson, Inge Jonsson, Jan Joosten, Elizabeth Judd, Mulambya Peggy Kabonde, Robert Kaggwa, Sylvester Kahakwa, Isaac Kalimi, Ogbu U. Kalu, Eunice Kamaara, Wayne C. Kannaday, Musimbi Kanyoro, Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Frank Kaufmann, Léon Nguapitshi Kayongo, Richard Kearney, Alice A. Keefe, Ralph Keen, Catherine Keller, Anthony J. Kelly, Karen Kennelly, Kathi Lynn Kern, Fergus Kerr, Edward Kessler, George Kilcourse, Heup Young Kim, Kim Sung-Hae, Kim Yong-Bock, Kim Yung Suk, Richard King, Thomas M. King, Robert M. Kingdon, Ross Kinsler, Hans G. Kippenberg, Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan, Clifton Kirkpatrick, Leonid Kishkovsky, Nadieszda Kizenko, Jeffrey Klaiber, Hans-Josef Klauck, Sidney Knight, Samuel Kobia, Robert Kolb, Karla Ann Koll, Heikki Kotila, Donald Kraybill, Philip D. W. Krey, Yves Krumenacker, Jeffrey Kah-Jin Kuan, Simanga R. Kumalo, Peter Kuzmic, Simon Shui-Man Kwan, Kwok Pui-lan, André LaCocque, Stephen E. Lahey, John Tsz Pang Lai, Emiel Lamberts, Armando Lampe, Craig Lampe, Beverly J. Lanzetta, Eve LaPlante, Lizette Larson-Miller, Ariel Bybee Laughton, Leonard Lawlor, Bentley Layton, Robin A. Leaver, Karen Lebacqz, Archie Chi Chung Lee, Marilyn J. Legge, Hervé LeGrand, D. L. LeMahieu, Raymond Lemieux, Bill J. Leonard, Ellen M. Leonard, Outi Leppä, Jean Lesaulnier, Nantawan Boonprasat Lewis, Henrietta Leyser, Alexei Lidov, Bernard Lightman, Paul Chang-Ha Lim, Carter Lindberg, Mark R. Lindsay, James R. Linville, James C. Livingston, Ann Loades, David Loades, Jean-Claude Loba-Mkole, Lo Lung Kwong, Wati Longchar, Eleazar López, David W. Lotz, Andrew Louth, Robin W. Lovin, William Luis, Frank D. Macchia, Diarmaid N. J. MacCulloch, Kirk R. MacGregor, Marjory A. MacLean, Donald MacLeod, Tomas S. Maddela, Inge Mager, Laurenti Magesa, David G. Maillu, Fortunato Mallimaci, Philip Mamalakis, Kä Mana, Ukachukwu Chris Manus, Herbert Robinson Marbury, Reuel Norman Marigza, Jacqueline Mariña, Antti Marjanen, Luiz C. L. Marques, Madipoane Masenya (ngwan'a Mphahlele), Caleb J. D. Maskell, Steve Mason, Thomas Massaro, Fernando Matamoros Ponce, András Máté-Tóth, Odair Pedroso Mateus, Dinis Matsolo, Fumitaka Matsuoka, John D'Arcy May, Yelena Mazour-Matusevich, Theodore Mbazumutima, John S. McClure, Christian McConnell, Lee Martin McDonald, Gary B. McGee, Thomas McGowan, Alister E. McGrath, Richard J. McGregor, John A. McGuckin, Maud Burnett McInerney, Elsie Anne McKee, Mary B. McKinley, James F. McMillan, Ernan McMullin, Kathleen E. McVey, M. Douglas Meeks, Monica Jyotsna Melanchthon, Ilie Melniciuc-Puica, Everett Mendoza, Raymond A. Mentzer, William W. Menzies, Ina Merdjanova, Franziska Metzger, Constant J. Mews, Marvin Meyer, Carol Meyers, Vasile Mihoc, Gunner Bjerg Mikkelsen, Maria Inêz de Castro Millen, Clyde Lee Miller, Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore, Alexander Mirkovic, Paul Misner, Nozomu Miyahira, R. W. L. Moberly, Gerald Moede, Aloo Osotsi Mojola, Sunanda Mongia, Rebeca Montemayor, James Moore, Roger E. Moore, Craig E. Morrison O.Carm, Jeffry H. Morrison, Keith Morrison, Wilson J. Moses, Tefetso Henry Mothibe, Mokgethi Motlhabi, Fulata Moyo, Henry Mugabe, Jesse Ndwiga Kanyua Mugambi, Peggy Mulambya-Kabonde, Robert Bruce Mullin, Pamela Mullins Reaves, Saskia Murk Jansen, Heleen L. Murre-Van den Berg, Augustine Musopole, Isaac M. T. Mwase, Philomena Mwaura, Cecilia Nahnfeldt, Anne Nasimiyu Wasike, Carmiña Navia Velasco, Thulani Ndlazi, Alexander Negrov, James B. Nelson, David G. Newcombe, Carol Newsom, Helen J. Nicholson, George W. E. Nickelsburg, Tatyana Nikolskaya, Damayanthi M. A. Niles, Bertil Nilsson, Nyambura Njoroge, Fidelis Nkomazana, Mary Beth Norton, Christian Nottmeier, Sonene Nyawo, Anthère Nzabatsinda, Edward T. Oakes, Gerald O'Collins, Daniel O'Connell, David W. Odell-Scott, Mercy Amba Oduyoye, Kathleen O'Grady, Oyeronke Olajubu, Thomas O'Loughlin, Dennis T. Olson, J. Steven O'Malley, Cephas N. Omenyo, Muriel Orevillo-Montenegro, César Augusto Ornellas Ramos, Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orobator, Kenan B. Osborne, Carolyn Osiek, Javier Otaola Montagne, Douglas F. Ottati, Anna May Say Pa, Irina Paert, Jerry G. Pankhurst, Aristotle Papanikolaou, Samuele F. Pardini, Stefano Parenti, Peter Paris, Sung Bae Park, Cristián G. Parker, Raquel Pastor, Joseph Pathrapankal, Daniel Patte, W. Brown Patterson, Clive Pearson, Keith F. Pecklers, Nancy Cardoso Pereira, David Horace Perkins, Pheme Perkins, Edward N. Peters, Rebecca Todd Peters, Bishop Yeznik Petrossian, Raymond Pfister, Peter C. Phan, Isabel Apawo Phiri, William S. F. Pickering, Derrick G. Pitard, William Elvis Plata, Zlatko Plese, John Plummer, James Newton Poling, Ronald Popivchak, Andrew Porter, Ute Possekel, James M. Powell, Enos Das Pradhan, Devadasan Premnath, Jaime Adrían Prieto Valladares, Anne Primavesi, Randall Prior, María Alicia Puente Lutteroth, Eduardo Guzmão Quadros, Albert Rabil, Laurent William Ramambason, Apolonio M. Ranche, Vololona Randriamanantena Andriamitandrina, Lawrence R. Rast, Paul L. Redditt, Adele Reinhartz, Rolf Rendtorff, Pål Repstad, James N. Rhodes, John K. Riches, Joerg Rieger, Sharon H. Ringe, Sandra Rios, Tyler Roberts, David M. Robinson, James M. Robinson, Joanne Maguire Robinson, Richard A. H. Robinson, Roy R. Robson, Jack B. Rogers, Maria Roginska, Sidney Rooy, Rev. Garnett Roper, Maria José Fontelas Rosado-Nunes, Andrew C. Ross, Stefan Rossbach, François Rossier, John D. Roth, John K. Roth, Phillip Rothwell, Richard E. Rubenstein, Rosemary Radford Ruether, Markku Ruotsila, John E. Rybolt, Risto Saarinen, John Saillant, Juan Sanchez, Wagner Lopes Sanchez, Hugo N. Santos, Gerhard Sauter, Gloria L. Schaab, Sandra M. Schneiders, Quentin J. Schultze, Fernando F. Segovia, Turid Karlsen Seim, Carsten Selch Jensen, Alan P. F. Sell, Frank C. Senn, Kent Davis Sensenig, Damían Setton, Bal Krishna Sharma, Carolyn J. Sharp, Thomas Sheehan, N. Gerald Shenk, Christian Sheppard, Charles Sherlock, Tabona Shoko, Walter B. Shurden, Marguerite Shuster, B. Mark Sietsema, Batara Sihombing, Neil Silberman, Clodomiro Siller, Samuel Silva-Gotay, Heikki Silvet, John K. Simmons, Hagith Sivan, James C. Skedros, Abraham Smith, Ashley A. Smith, Ted A. Smith, Daud Soesilo, Pia Søltoft, Choan-Seng (C. S.) Song, Kathryn Spink, Bryan Spinks, Eric O. Springsted, Nicolas Standaert, Brian Stanley, Glen H. Stassen, Karel Steenbrink, Stephen J. Stein, Andrea Sterk, Gregory E. Sterling, Columba Stewart, Jacques Stewart, Robert B. Stewart, Cynthia Stokes Brown, Ken Stone, Anne Stott, Elizabeth Stuart, Monya Stubbs, Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki, David Kwang-sun Suh, Scott W. Sunquist, Keith Suter, Douglas Sweeney, Charles H. Talbert, Shawqi N. Talia, Elsa Tamez, Joseph B. Tamney, Jonathan Y. Tan, Yak-Hwee Tan, Kathryn Tanner, Feiya Tao, Elizabeth S. Tapia, Aquiline Tarimo, Claire Taylor, Mark Lewis Taylor, Bishop Abba Samuel Wolde Tekestebirhan, Eugene TeSelle, M. Thomas Thangaraj, David R. Thomas, Andrew Thornley, Scott Thumma, Marcelo Timotheo da Costa, George E. “Tink” Tinker, Ola Tjørhom, Karen Jo Torjesen, Iain R. Torrance, Fernando Torres-Londoño, Archbishop Demetrios [Trakatellis], Marit Trelstad, Christine Trevett, Phyllis Trible, Johannes Tromp, Paul Turner, Robert G. Tuttle, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Peter Tyler, Anders Tyrberg, Justin Ukpong, Javier Ulloa, Camillus Umoh, Kristi Upson-Saia, Martina Urban, Monica Uribe, Elochukwu Eugene Uzukwu, Richard Vaggione, Gabriel Vahanian, Paul Valliere, T. J. Van Bavel, Steven Vanderputten, Peter Van der Veer, Huub Van de Sandt, Louis Van Tongeren, Luke A. Veronis, Noel Villalba, Ramón Vinke, Tim Vivian, David Voas, Elena Volkova, Katharina von Kellenbach, Elina Vuola, Timothy Wadkins, Elaine M. Wainwright, Randi Jones Walker, Dewey D. Wallace, Jerry Walls, Michael J. Walsh, Philip Walters, Janet Walton, Jonathan L. Walton, Wang Xiaochao, Patricia A. Ward, David Harrington Watt, Herold D. Weiss, Laurence L. Welborn, Sharon D. Welch, Timothy Wengert, Traci C. West, Merold Westphal, David Wetherell, Barbara Wheeler, Carolinne White, Jean-Paul Wiest, Frans Wijsen, Terry L. Wilder, Felix Wilfred, Rebecca Wilkin, Daniel H. Williams, D. Newell Williams, Michael A. Williams, Vincent L. Wimbush, Gabriele Winkler, Anders Winroth, Lauri Emílio Wirth, James A. Wiseman, Ebba Witt-Brattström, Teofil Wojciechowski, John Wolffe, Kenman L. Wong, Wong Wai Ching, Linda Woodhead, Wendy M. Wright, Rose Wu, Keith E. Yandell, Gale A. Yee, Viktor Yelensky, Yeo Khiok-Khng, Gustav K. K. Yeung, Angela Yiu, Amos Yong, Yong Ting Jin, You Bin, Youhanna Nessim Youssef, Eliana Yunes, Robert Michael Zaller, Valarie H. Ziegler, Barbara Brown Zikmund, Joyce Ann Zimmerman, Aurora Zlotnik, Zhuo Xinping
- Edited by Daniel Patte, Vanderbilt University, Tennessee
-
- Book:
- The Cambridge Dictionary of Christianity
- Published online:
- 05 August 2012
- Print publication:
- 20 September 2010, pp xi-xliv
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
III - Fooling with Language: Sir Dinadan in Malory’s Morte Darthur
- Edited by Keith Busby, Roger Dalrymple
-
- Book:
- Arthurian Literature XXIII
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 23 March 2023
- Print publication:
- 19 October 2006, pp 30-45
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
In Antecedents of the English Novel, 1400–1600, Margaret Schlauch hails the ‘courtly realism’ of Sir Thomas Malory's Morte Darthur and, in particular, ‘the comically realistic Sir Dinadan’, whose jokes about his fear of jousting have his listeners laughing so hard they can barely keep their seats. ‘Sir Dinadan, the realist’ (Elizabeth Edwards), the ‘rational moralist’ ruled by a ‘pragmatic creed’ (Donald Hoffman), remains a standard figure of Malorian analysis. Equally standard, however, is the scholarly observation that Dinadan's humorous cowardice never seriously challenges the ideology of knightly worship. This essay will re-examine Dinadan's role in Malory, questioning the alleged innocuousness of his comic counter-ideology. Dinadan making fun of chivalry may not be dangerous, but, I will argue, Dinadan turning language into the medium of foolery and japing is.
Sir Dinadan first appears in the anonymous French romance known as the Prose Tristan, written around 1230. In it he acts as Tristan's sidekick, a devoted friend and champion, who revenges Tristan's murder by King Mark. Sometime later, what Eugène Vinaver labeled the ‘Second Version’ of the Prose Tristan transformed Dinadan into a sarcastic critic of knightly manners and customs, one whose ‘philosophy of happiness’, according to Vinaver, ‘spares nothing, questions everything: knightly worship, courtly love, Christian belief’. Dinadan in the Prose Tristan burlesques established rituals. In one episode, for example, he is riding through a forest when he meets an unknown knight. The chevalier accosts him with a standard demand: ‘Sir knight, you must joust with me!’ The stranger is puzzled by Dinadan's response: ‘Sir knight’, he says, ‘so God give you good adventure, don't you know any other way to greet a knight-errant than to say, “You must joust with me”? So help me God, this greeting is hardly courteous!’ The befuddled stranger can only repeat his first question: Will Dinadan joust with him? ‘Tell me’, says Dinadan, ‘this joust that you demand from me, do you seek it for love or for hate?’ For love, of course, the stranger says. Well, says Dinadan, ‘Go show your love to somebody else, because if that's your idea of love, I’d rather be your enemy.’
Of course, the stranger knight's request was completely ‘courteous’, or courtois, as courtliness was understood within the traditions of Arthurian knighthood. What is shockingly unorthodox is Dinadan's refusal to respond with a similarly curt phrase, lower his lance, and charge.
The complaint of the makers: Wynnere and Wastoure and the “misperformance topos” in medieval England
- Edited by Evelyn Birge Vitz, Nancy Freeman Regalado, Marilyn Lawrence
-
- Book:
- Performing Medieval Narrative
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 28 October 2023
- Print publication:
- 26 May 2005, pp 27-40
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
‘Rap was looked at, back in the day, as something creative, something new …’ I’m reading a local arts weekly at the food court in my university's student union, taking a break from writing an article, this article, about medieval texts in which the author denounces performers who somehow misperform: who mangle texts or degrade the profession in some manner. These texts are frequently described, by editors and scholars of medieval English literature, as “conventional.” Usually discussion stops there, as if the conventional were simply meaningless.
Trugoy the Dove's group, De La Soul, was big in the 1990s, and has been struggling since. “Nowadays,” he goes on,
it's like the total reverse of that. Now rap is like, “You gotta go pop! You gotta hit the Top 40!” … Nowadays … guys are superstars even before they pay their dues. It's kinda hard for De La Soul to step to a Ja Rule and say, “Yo, if you wanna rock the crowd, man, you gotta do x, y, and z.” They’ll probably look at me like, “Listen, man. I’ve sold over 12 million records. I don't need your help.”
Is Trugoy indulging in a conventional rhetorical exercise devoid of historical relevance designed to convince the reader of his music's superiority? Some inquiries among rap-friendly students quickly establish that the music, and its audience, have indeed changed; De La Soul's kind of rap belongs to an older, less commercialized, and less verbally defiant generation.
This modern example adds support to my working hypothesis; along with its rhetorical effects, the misperformance topos in medieval English literature often also reflects some historic shift or tension in the nature of performance and audience. In no case, unfortunately, do we have sufficient data to reconstruct the precise historical context, as I could do so easily with rap. But it takes only a little investigation to discover that these “conventional” complaints actually occur only sporadically in England, over an extended period, and by no means simply parrot the French cognates or each other. I would argue, instead, that each misperformance topos presents an author responding vigorously to some stimulus in his or her particular historical, linguistic, and literary environment. While I cannot fill in all the gaps in the views projected by these texts, I hope at least to reframe the inquiry.
Looking Backward, Looking Forward: MLA Members Speak
- April Alliston, Elizabeth Ammons, Jean Arnold, Nina Baym, Sandra L. Beckett, Peter G. Beidler, Roger A. Berger, Sandra Bermann, J.J. Wilson, Troy Boone, Alison Booth, Wayne C. Booth, James Phelan, Marie Borroff, Ihab Hassan, Ulrich Weisstein, Zack Bowen, Jill Campbell, Dan Campion, Jay Caplan, Maurice Charney, Beverly Lyon Clark, Robert A. Colby, Thomas C. Coleman III, Nicole Cooley, Richard Dellamora, Morris Dickstein, Terrell Dixon, Emory Elliott, Caryl Emerson, Ann W. Engar, Lars Engle, Kai Hammermeister, N. N. Feltes, Mary Anne Ferguson, Annie Finch, Shelley Fisher Fishkin, Jerry Aline Flieger, Norman Friedman, Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Sandra M. Gilbert, Laurie Grobman, George Guida, Liselotte Gumpel, R. K. Gupta, Florence Howe, Cathy L. Jrade, Richard A. Kaye, Calhoun Winton, Murray Krieger, Robert Langbaum, Richard A. Lanham, Marilee Lindemann, Paul Michael Lützeler, Thomas J. Lynn, Juliet Flower MacCannell, Michelle A. Massé, Irving Massey, Georges May, Christian W. Hallstein, Gita May, Lucy McDiarmid, Ellen Messer-Davidow, Koritha Mitchell, Robin Smiles, Kenyatta Albeny, George Monteiro, Joel Myerson, Alan Nadel, Ashton Nichols, Jeffrey Nishimura, Neal Oxenhandler, David Palumbo-Liu, Vincent P. Pecora, David Porter, Nancy Potter, Ronald C. Rosbottom, Elias L. Rivers, Gerhard F. Strasser, J. L. Styan, Marianna De Marco Torgovnick, Gary Totten, David van Leer, Asha Varadharajan, Orrin N. C. Wang, Sharon Willis, Louise E. Wright, Donald A. Yates, Takayuki Yokota-Murakami, Richard E. Zeikowitz, Angelika Bammer, Dale Bauer, Karl Beckson, Betsy A. Bowen, Stacey Donohue, Sheila Emerson, Gwendolyn Audrey Foster, Jay L. Halio, Karl Kroeber, Terence Hawkes, William B. Hunter, Mary Jambus, Willard F. King, Nancy K. Miller, Jody Norton, Ann Pellegrini, S. P. Rosenbaum, Lorie Roth, Robert Scholes, Joanne Shattock, Rosemary T. VanArsdel, Alfred Bendixen, Alarma Kathleen Brown, Michael J. Kiskis, Debra A. Castillo, Rey Chow, John F. Crossen, Robert F. Fleissner, Regenia Gagnier, Nicholas Howe, M. Thomas Inge, Frank Mehring, Hyungji Park, Jahan Ramazani, Kenneth M. Roemer, Deborah D. Rogers, A. LaVonne Brown Ruoff, Regina M. Schwartz, John T. Shawcross, Brenda R. Silver, Andrew von Hendy, Virginia Wright Wexman, Britta Zangen, A. Owen Aldridge, Paula R. Backscheider, Roland Bartel, E. M. Forster, Milton Birnbaum, Jonathan Bishop, Crystal Downing, Frank H. Ellis, Roberto Forns-Broggi, James R. Giles, Mary E. Giles, Susan Blair Green, Madelyn Gutwirth, Constance B. Hieatt, Titi Adepitan, Edgar C. Knowlton, Jr., Emanuel Mussman, Sally Todd Nelson, Robert O. Preyer, David Diego Rodriguez, Guy Stern, James Thorpe, Robert J. Wilson, Rebecca S. Beal, Joyce Simutis, Betsy Bowden, Sara Cooper, Wheeler Winston Dixon, Tarek el Ariss, Richard Jewell, John W. Kronik, Wendy Martin, Stuart Y. McDougal, Hugo Méndez-Ramírez, Ivy Schweitzer, Armand E. Singer, G. Thomas Tanselle, Tom Bishop, Mary Ann Caws, Marcel Gutwirth, Christophe Ippolito, Lawrence D. Kritzman, James Longenbach, Tim McCracken, Wolfe S. Molitor, Diane Quantic, Gregory Rabassa, Ellen M. Tsagaris, Anthony C. Yu, Betty Jean Craige, Wendell V. Harris, J. Hillis Miller, Jesse G. Swan, Helene Zimmer-Loew, Peter Berek, James Chandler, Hanna K. Charney, Philip Cohen, Judith Fetterley, Herbert Lindenberger, Julia Reinhard Lupton, Maximillian E. Novak, Richard Ohmann, Marjorie Perloff, Mark Reynolds, James Sledd, Harriet Turner, Marie Umeh, Flavia Aloya, Regina Barreca, Konrad Bieber, Ellis Hanson, William J. Hyde, Holly A. Laird, David Leverenz, Allen Michie, J. Wesley Miller, Marvin Rosenberg, Daniel R. Schwarz, Elizabeth Welt Trahan, Jean Fagan Yellin
-
- Journal:
- PMLA / Publications of the Modern Language Association of America / Volume 115 / Issue 7 / December 2000
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 23 October 2020, pp. 1986-2078
- Print publication:
- December 2000
-
- Article
- Export citation
Determinants of Clean Surgical Wound Infections for Breast Procedures at an Oncology Center
- Coleman Rotstein, Richard Ferguson, K. Michael Cummings, Marion R. Piedmonte, Joyce Lucey, Anne Banish
-
- Journal:
- Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology / Volume 13 / Issue 4 / April 1992
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 21 June 2016, pp. 207-214
- Print publication:
- April 1992
-
- Article
- Export citation
-
Objective:
To determine the clean surgical wound infection rate for breast procedures and the risk factors predisposing patients to these infections.
Design:A survey study.
Setting:Oncology center.
Patients:A consecutive sample of adult female patients who underwent surgical breast procedures for suspected carcinoma of the breast. Patients undergoing excisional biopsy, lumpectomy, or mastectomy from January 1985 to January 1987 were included in the study.
Intervention:Clean surgical wound infection rates were derived overall and for each procedure type. The medical records of all patients were then reviewed to extract data on patient characteristics and operative information in order to assess the risk factors for infection.
Results:Among the breast procedures performed on 448 patients, the overall clean surgical wound infection rate was 8.7% (39/448). The clean surgical wound infection rate for each procedure type was as follows: biopsy 2.3%, lumpectomy 6.6%, and mastectomy 19%. In addition to the type of procedure, factors significantly (p< .05) associated with the development of clean surgical wound infection in the univariate analysis included: presence of surgical drains (p<.01); closed suction drainage (odds ratio [OR] = 16.5, 95% confidence interval [CI95] = 5.0-54.7); location of the drain (OR = 3.3, CI95= 1.7-6.6); prolonged preoperative stay (OR= 1.2, CI,, = 1.0-1.5); length of surgery (OR=2.2, CI95= 1.7-3.0); and greater mean age (OR= 1.6, CI,, = 1.2-2.1).
Conclusion:Clean surgical wound infections are not uncommon in patients undergoing breast procedures. Factors relating to both the patient and operative techniques contribute to the clean surgical wound infection rate. Further consideration should be given to perioperative antibiotic prophylaxis for selected breast procedures, and the role of surgical drains should be reassessed.
Nosocomial Infection Rates at an Oncology Center
- Coleman Rotstein, K. Michael Cummings, Andreas L. Nicolaou, Joyce Lucey, John Fitzpatrick
-
- Journal:
- Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology / Volume 9 / Issue 1 / January 1988
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 02 January 2015, pp. 13-19
- Print publication:
- January 1988
-
- Article
- Export citation
-
Nosocomial infection rates were computed for 5,031 patients at an oncology center during a 20-month period. Twelve percent of the patients developed nosocomial infections, accounting for a total of 802 infections. The overall incidence of nosocomial infections during this study period was 6.27 infections per 1,000 patient days. The highest incidence of nosocomial infections was found in patients having acute myelogenous leukemia (30.49 infections per 1,000 patient days); bone and joint cancer (27.27 infections per 1,000 patient days); and liver cancer (26.58 infections per 1,000 patient days). The respiratory tract was the most common site of infection, followed by blood-stream, surgical wound, and urinary tract infections. Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and coagulase-negative staphylococci were most frequently implicated as pathogens. The distribution of specific types of infection according to underlying malignancy was also tabulated. These data provide nosocomial infection rates, common pathogens, and sites of infection for cancer patients, thus assisting in directing appropriate therapy for these patients.