First published in 1996. Intertextuality the phenomenon is as old as literature itself. And to medievalists in particular, it was a critical commonplace long before the term was coined: we have routinely recognized that, during the Middle Ages, texts consistently borrowed from one another and from the traditions they all shared. Those borrowings can take the form of thematic echoes, of the appropriation of characters and situations, and even of direct citation. This volume is a collection of essays discussing the intertextual dimensions of Arthurian literature.

Unique in combining a comprehensive and comparative study of genre with a study of romance, this book constitutes a significant contribution to ongoing critical debates over the definition of romance and the genre and artistry of Malory's Morte Darthur. K.S. Whetter offers an original approach to these issues by prefacing a comprehensive study of romance with a wide-ranging and historically diverse study of genre and genre theory. In doing so Whetter addresses the questions of why and how romance might usefully be defined and how such an awareness of genre-and the expectations that come with such awareness-impact upon both our understanding of the texts themselves and of how they may have been received by their contemporary medieval audiences. As an integral part the study Whetter offers a detailed examination of Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur, a text usually considered a straightforward romance but which Whetter argues should be re-classified and reconsidered as a generic mixture best termed tragic-romance. This new classification is important in helping to explain a number of so-called inconsistencies or puzzles in Malory's text and further elucidates Malory's artistry. Whetter offers a powerful meditation upon genre, romance and the Morte which will be of interest to faculty, graduate students and undergraduates alike.

The renowned and illustrious tales of King Arthur, his knights and the Round Table pervade all European vernaculars, as well as the Latin tradition. Arthurian narrative material, which had originally been transmitted in oral culture, began to be inscribed regularly in the twelfth century, developing from (pseudo-)historical beginnings in the Latin chronicles of "historians" such as Geoffrey of Monmouth into masterful literary works like the romances of Chrétien de Troyes. Evidently a big hit, Arthur found himself being swiftly translated, adapted and integrated into the literary traditions of almost every European vernacular during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. This Handbook seeks to showcase the European character of Arthurian romance both past and present. By working across national philological boundaries, which in the past have tended to segregate the study of Arthurian romance according to language, as well as by exploring primary texts from different vernaculars and the Latin tradition in conjunction with recent theoretical concepts and approaches, this Handbook brings together a pioneering and more complete view of the specifically European context of Arthurian romance, and promotes the more connected study of Arthurian literature across the entirety of its European context.

Relationships between people and texts form the focus of the studies collected in this book. It was presented to Erik Kooper in recognition of his lifelong efforts to bring together people from universities worldwide. It will be of special interest to scholars and students of Arthurian and Middle English literature, codicologists, scholars interested in medieval Latin sermons and the Gesta Herewardi, in medieval drama and in texts in Middle English, among them Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Wynnere and Wastoure, Sir Eglamour, the Tale of Gamelyn, and, in Scots, the metrical chronicle of William Stewart. Articles on early twentieth-century Chaucerian scholarship and on many of the Old French Arthurian romances as well as the writings of Wace and Benoît de Sainte-Maure are also included.

A new look at the way in which medieval European literature depicts torture and brutality.

This volume brings together a wide range of original, scholarly essays on key figures and topics in medieval literature by leading academics. The volume examines the major authors such as Chaucer, Langland and the Gawain Poet, and covers key topics in medieval literature, including gender, class, courtly and popular culture, and religion. The volume seeks to provide a fresh and stimulating guide to medieval literature.