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Roppolo, Joseph P. "The Converted Knight in Chaucer’s ‘Wife of
Bath’s Tale.’" College English, Vol. 12, No. 5 (Feb., 1951),
263-269. (This article details the
transformation on both sides of the Loathly Lady equation. While the hag is
transformed outwardly, the knight is transformed inwardly. Chaucer’s story,
therefore, concerns itself more with a change on the knight’s part than with
the transformation of the hag into a beautiful young woman. Roppolo calls the new motif concerning the
knight’s conversion the Converted Knight, and treats the tale completely
separately from the Gawain Cycle.) Holland, Norman N. "Meaning as Transformation: The Wife of
Bath’s Tale." College English, Vol. 28, No. 4, (Jan., 1967),
279-290. (Holland uses a psychosexual
approach to analyze the transformation dynamic between the knight and the
loathly lady. He suggests that the vehicle of transformation is through a
successive breaking of taboos (i.e., rape, the women of the court deciding
the knight’s fate, the loathly lady possessing power over the knight, etc.).
The women actually receive the sovereignty that is the correct response to
Guinevere’s question symbolically through the transformation of the wayward
knight.) Thompson, Raymond H. "’Muse on thi Mirrour…’: The Challenge of
the Outlandish Stranger in the English Arthurian Verse Romances. Folklore,
Vol. 87, No. 2 (1976), 201-208. (Thompson contends that most of
the beheading game literature is extremely critical of the knightly culture
presented in these tales. He compares the transformation in beheading game
literature with that of loathly lady literature. The fundamental use of the
outsider is to expose the fault’s in Arthur’s court.) Ross, Anne. Pagan Celtic Britain: Studies in Iconography and Tradition. New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967. (Ross outlines, in spectacular detail, a phenomenon she terms “The Cult of the Head” in Celtic society. She exhaustively lists different examples from insular and continental Celtic artwork to illustrate their worship of the head. One of the most interesting points in regard to my reading is that the preponderance of head art is found in northern England, near Hadrian’s wall, precisely the same area in which most beheading game literature was produced.) Davidson, H.R. Ellis. The Sword in Anglo-Saxon England. New York: Boydell Press, 1994. (This book details the numerous examples of Anglo-Saxon swords that survive in England and on the continent. The amount of time and energy used to forge a sword, especially when those swords were ornately carved, suggests some sort of importance over the purely functional. Swords, therefore, were symbols of power in Anglo-Saxon times, and much of that reverence for swords carried over even into Medieval English literature.) Cooper, Helen. The English Romance in Time: Transforming Motifs from Geoffrey of Monmouth to the Death of
Shakespeare. New York: U Oxford P, 2004. (This extremely
thorough book outlines Romances produced after 1500, their sources and many
of the influences exerted upon the others.
She includes the Wife of Bath’s Tale and also many Gawain romances,
but does not include them under the same heading. She makes the common critical assumption that the tales, while
analogues of one another, do not belong in the same cycle.) Walls,
Kathryn. The Axe in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes, and
Reviews, 2003 Winter; 16 (1): 13-18. (Walls asserts
that Medieval readers would have related the Green Knight’s axe, and the
holly branch he brings to Arthur’s court, to a section of scripture found in
Matthew 3.10. This passage metaphorically refers to axes cutting down trees, or
beliefs. An interesting article, but
not altogether convincing.) Trimnell, Karen H. 'And Should
Have Been Oderwyse Understond': The Disenchanting of Sir Gromer Somer
Joure. Medium
Ævum, 2002; 71 (2): 294-301. (In her article,
Trimnell argues that Sir Gromer Somer Joure’s name is actually a
mistranslation of Goumeres sans Mesure, from French romances. An extremely interesting article, but
seeing as I’ve read none of the French sources cited by Trimnell, not
terribly helpful.) Coomaraswamy, Ananda K. On the
Loathly Bride Speculum, Vol. 20, No. 4 (Oct., 1945),
391-404. (This article
deals with how archetypical the Loathly Lady motif really is, appearing in
Indian folklore and mythology, Irish/Celtic myth, Greek myth, with many other
cultural derivations. Putting the
motif outside of a Celtic framework helps to assign the tales more importance
then they would have if peculiar to English or Celtic literature.) Steinberg, Aaron. “The Wife of Bath’s Tale and Her Fantasy of Fulfillment.” College English, Vol. 26, No. 3
(Dec., 1964), 187-191. (Details, almost
50 years ago, the psychological desire for the Wife of Bath to create a tale
in which she could live out her desires.
The Hag becomes young and beautiful, and completely adored by a
socially elite young male. I believe
this is one of the first articles to assert this possibility, and her
comments are, I think, very astute.) Citations without Annotations:
Forste-Grupp, Sheryl L. A Woman Circumvents the Laws of Primogeniture in The Weddynge of Sir Gawen and Dame Ragnell. Studies in Philology, Vol. 99, No. 2 (Spring, 2002), 105-122.
Kittredge, George L. Disenchantment by Decapitation. The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 18, No. 68 (Jan.-Mar., 1905), 1-14. Hardman, Phillipa. Gawain's Practice of Piety in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Medium Aevum, 1999; 68 (2): 247-67. |
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