Approaching Grail narratives as a distinct subgenre of medieval romance, this thesis compares five Old French and Middle English Grail texts: Chretien de Troyes’ Perceval (c.1190), the Didot-Perceval (c.1200), Perlesvaus (early thirteenth century), the Vulgate Cycle Queste del Saint Graal (c.1225) and Thomas Malory’s Tale of the Sankgreal (1469). Through detailed analysis of the ways these texts explore three primary areas of Christian experience – sight, space and time – this thesis illuminates both concepts shared across these Grail narratives, and characteristics that distinguish them from each other. The comparative analysis of this thesis shows how the Grail romances operate according to a distinct form of logic that furthers their interests in spiritual instruction.

This thesis opens with an introduction to the five texts under consideration and an overview of previous scholarship on the Grail narratives. The introduction also discusses some of the conventional features of Arthurian romance and foregrounds the ways in which the Grail romances disrupt and distort these familiar expectations. Chapter One, ‘Hermeneutic Progression: Sight, Knowledge, and Perception’, explores the ways in which the Grail narratives utilise medieval optical theories to highlight hermeneutic contrasts between normative Arthurian aventures and Grail aventures. The knights’ failures in perception in the latter are marked by a geographical disorientation. Chapter Two, ‘Spatial Perception: The Topography of the Grail Quest’, argues that once the knights embark upon the quest of the Holy Grail, they enter a separate temporal framework in which their physical progression is dictated by their spiritual improvement. Chapter Three, ‘Temporal Transformations: Grail Time’, suggests that in the Grail narratives, concepts of time are transformed to allow readers and Grail knights to travel between the Arthurian present and the biblical past. It is through interpreting and understanding the relationship between past and present that the significance of the Grail aventures emerges.

The conclusion to this thesis explores contemporary medieval ideas of demonstrative and dialectic argumentation to suggest that the Grail romances function as a visual form of demonstrative argumentation. This thesis argues that this logic distinguishes the Grail narratives from more secular Arthurian romances and enables both Grail knights and readers to develop their appreciation and understanding of the Grail miracles themselves.

The logic of the Grail on Old French and Middle English Arthurian romance

This article questions the “narrator theory of narration” with particular reference to medieval narratives, often retellings of existing stories, and generally neglected by current theory. Part I analyzes the concept of the internal, potentially unreliable narrator, widely regarded as a narratological necessity. Part II examines the history of the term narrator . Part III studies the theories of narration implied by scribal annotations in some medieval manuscripts. Parts IV, V, and VI discuss three medieval cases—Malory’s Morte Darthur , Chaucer’s Physician’s Tale and the anonymous Pearl —in which application of the narrator theory proves to be misleading.

What is a Narrator?: Narrator Theory and Medieval Narratives

THE CREATION OF HEAVEN IN THE MIDDLE AGES William M. Storm, B.A., M.A. Marquette University, 2014 My dissertation focuses on the intersection of the discourses of space and place, art, religion, and politics in poetical accounts of heaven. My study investigates how authors deploy these various traditions to create a heaven that accommodates the needs of a particular audience. Heaven is, according to Yi-Fu Tuan, a “mythical place,” which cannot be located. To avoid the problems of a “mythical place,” we represent that location with slightly-blurred experiential knowledge or communally-sanctioned practices. The creation of heaven, I argue, does not occur ex nihilo but through a refashioning of knowledge and practices to engage audiences with descriptions of heaven. To examine this concept, I primarily analyze the descriptions of place in Pearl and Piers Plowman, while providing discussion of Paradiso, The Vision of Tnugdal, and episodes from the writings of Hadewijch that offer competing and complementing visions. This study offers an opportunity to view heaven not as simply a consistent and monolithic feature of society but as a created site. Rather than examining heaven solely as art, or only through doctrinal concerns, heaven must be considered in terms of a variety of discourses. The layering of art, politics, religion, and space and place remind readers of the medieval religious project. God, for the medieval, was not an abstract ideal but an ever-present quality of their daily existences; as God could be seen in all facets of life, so too can heaven be seen through aspects of life that seem mundane and removed from ethereal experience. The first chapter of The Creation of Heaven in the Middle Ages outlines the problem of considering heaven as a monolithic entity. By tracing the history of heaven, the chapter demonstrates that we cannot view heaven as outside of time and place; heaven responds to the needs of particular audiences. As such, heaven cannot be considered only a religious place; heaven is a place that depends upon the engagement of multiple ideas, including theories of space and place, art history, and politics. The second chapter investigates the places of the afterlife in Pearl and Piers Plowman. While similarities exist between the two, each text offers a striking vision of the afterlife; and while a cityscape, and a besieged church and tower evoke distinct impressions of heaven, the chapter examines how each of these visions forces the reader to wonder if heaven might be a viable end. The third chapter engages in how the aesthetic choices of heaven work to create meaning within the mind of the reader. The larger goals of medieval aesthetics, embodied in stained-glass windows, reflect the projects of Pearl and Piers Plowman, namely to teach through a series of highly colored and instructive scenes. The final chapter offers a view of heaven through the political atmospheres of Ricardian England, reflecting the various choices of that monarch that impacts not only earth but also the heavenly retinue. A brief postscript closes out the dissertation that asks how these medieval visions might allow us to view the current interest of heaven, which can be seen in the popularity and success of life after death accounts

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The Creation of Heaven in the Middle Ages

perfection. 11 Medieval Alchemy Before any comprehensive discussion of the relationship between Pearl and the symbolic system of alchemy can begin, some background on the history of alchemy must 10 John Gatta, Jr., ―Transformation Symbolism and the Liturgy of the Mass in Pearl‘,‖ Modern Philology 71 (1974): 243-56. As Gatta summarizes, ―Most basically, it is the account of a father‘s efforts to come to personal terms with his child‘s early death‖ (256). 11 Ibid.

Recombinant Metaphors: Uses of Language and Medieval Interdisciplinarity in Pearl

Pearl, Petrarch's Trionfo Della Morte, and Boccaccio's Olympia

the pearl stands for the soul of the poem's narrator;1 others, among them one of the leading proponents of the exegetical approach in general, have asserted that it is to be understood according to the standard "four levels" of scriptural exegesis;2 and there have been many other interpretations.3 Although such attempts to find some hidden layer of meaning in the poem seem to me misconceived, it is not my purpose here either to enter into the theoretical controversy about exegesis (to which so distinguished a contribution has recently been made in this journal by Professor Bloomfield4) or to offer any detailed criticism of the various existing interpretations of Pearl. I hope simply, by outlining an adequate non-allegorical reading of the pearl symbolism, to show that whether or not allegorical explication is desirable it is at least not necessary. I think, certainly, that one strong argument against supposing that the poem's readers need make some effort of allegorical interpretation is the fact that the poet seems to make the pearl-Maiden herself provide exegesis wherever exegesis is necessary. Thus, after the parable of the vineyard has been recounted, the Maiden does not rely on the Dreamer, and the poet does not rely on his reader, to interpret it out of his own knowledge of current exegesis. An explicit and careful interpretation is supplied in the

A. C. Spearing

Papers

Symbolic and Dramatic Development in "Pearl"