Empire of Magic
I forget how I came across this book, but I picked up Empire of Magic: Medieval Romance and the Politics of Cultural Fantasy by Geraldine Heng from the York Library today. To be honest it was part fancy, part fortune that brought this book to my attention. I was perusing the York Library Catalogue online for books on Chaucer and other medieval topics originally. As it happens this book is a fresh, new take on medieval literature ala New Historicism (I hope I'm not 'mis-categorising' this book). The reason I raised this issue is, once again, to showcase some ideas/writing that I found amazing. Behold:
If romance did not originate in the Middle Ages--if there never was an "origin" for romance--it had a powerful, distinct moment of re-beginning in early twelfth-century England: a conspicuous moment when a species of magical narrative coalesced in an extraordinary pattern, out of a field of forces in culture and history, to creative an examplar for the romances that followed in the three hundred or more years to come, with an impact that ultimately traveled well beyond the Middle Ages itself. I locate the point at which a narrative shaped itself into the pattern we now recognize as medieval romance in Geoffrey of Monmouth's audacious History of the Kings of Britain (Historia Regum Britannie), created around 1130-39: a moment that also witnesses the first appearance of King Arthur's legend in literary form in the West. (2)
Cultural fantasy does not evade but confronts history, as I show repeatedly throughout the chapters of my book. Fantasy engages with lived event, crisis and trauma, and conditions of exigency in ways that render intelligible to humans the incalculable and the incommensurate. (14)
I realize there are those who do not agree with this approach to literature, but then I've only read the introduction and part of the opening chapter on Geoffrey of Monmouth, so I am not representing the book. If you care to know more, read the book. In later chapters (unread) she focuses on Chretien de Troyes, Richard Coer de Lyon, the Constance group of stories, Mandeville's Travels and the Alliterative Morte Darthure. To my understanding this book also explores the aspects of race (focusing on the Jews and Muslims) that are common to the medieval 'romance' genre.
If only I could learn to stick to school readings then I'd be finished reading Train To Pakistan. It seems I am more interested in medieval genres and their connection to the modern age. Perhaps when I have free time I'll read the copy of the Gormenghast Trilogy that I picked up a few days ago.
If romance did not originate in the Middle Ages--if there never was an "origin" for romance--it had a powerful, distinct moment of re-beginning in early twelfth-century England: a conspicuous moment when a species of magical narrative coalesced in an extraordinary pattern, out of a field of forces in culture and history, to creative an examplar for the romances that followed in the three hundred or more years to come, with an impact that ultimately traveled well beyond the Middle Ages itself. I locate the point at which a narrative shaped itself into the pattern we now recognize as medieval romance in Geoffrey of Monmouth's audacious History of the Kings of Britain (Historia Regum Britannie), created around 1130-39: a moment that also witnesses the first appearance of King Arthur's legend in literary form in the West. (2)
Cultural fantasy does not evade but confronts history, as I show repeatedly throughout the chapters of my book. Fantasy engages with lived event, crisis and trauma, and conditions of exigency in ways that render intelligible to humans the incalculable and the incommensurate. (14)
I realize there are those who do not agree with this approach to literature, but then I've only read the introduction and part of the opening chapter on Geoffrey of Monmouth, so I am not representing the book. If you care to know more, read the book. In later chapters (unread) she focuses on Chretien de Troyes, Richard Coer de Lyon, the Constance group of stories, Mandeville's Travels and the Alliterative Morte Darthure. To my understanding this book also explores the aspects of race (focusing on the Jews and Muslims) that are common to the medieval 'romance' genre.
If only I could learn to stick to school readings then I'd be finished reading Train To Pakistan. It seems I am more interested in medieval genres and their connection to the modern age. Perhaps when I have free time I'll read the copy of the Gormenghast Trilogy that I picked up a few days ago.
posted by Davyth | 7:06 PM
1 Comments:
Surprise, surprise, another piece on Chaucer. I guess he is going to be your Graduate School study, isn't he?
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