L. Ashe, Fiction and History in England, 1066-1200,

Laura Ashe, Fiction and History in England, 1066-1200, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, coll. "Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature" n°68, 2008, xii-247p.

ISBN: 978-0-521-87891-3

Recension par Ruth Morse (Université Paris Diderot) dans The Medieval Review: TMR 08.11.17

Présentation de l'éditeur:

The century and a half following the Norman Conquest of 1066 saw an explosion in the writing of Latin and vernacular history in England, while the creation of the romance genre reinvented the fictional narrative. Where critics have seen these developments as part of a cross-Channel phenomenon, Laura Ashe argues that a genuinely distinctive character can be found in the writings of England during the period. Drawing on a wide range of historical, legal and cultural contexts, she discusses how writers addressed the Conquest and rebuilt their sense of identity as a new, united ‘English' people, with their own national literature and culture, in a manner which was to influence all subsequent medieval English literature. This study opens up new ways of reading post-Conquest texts in relation to developments in political and legal history, and in terms of their place in the English Middle Ages as a whole.

• Thoroughly researched, and underpinned by rigorous historical analysis • Of interest to historians as well as literary scholars • Covers both well-known and less well-known, but influential, works of the period

Laura Ashe, Queen Mary, University of London

Sommaire:

Acknowledgements page ix Abbreviations x Illustrations xii Introduction 1 1 The Normans in England: a question of place 28
The Bayeux Tapestry: performative text 35
The Roman de Rou: a Norman myth? 49
The end of Normanitas, the uses of the Britons, and the rise of Engleterre 55
The Roman de Rou: le fait n'a jamais qu'une existence linguistique 64 2 ‘Nos Engleis': war, chronicle, and the new English 81
The historical context: localism evolving into nationalism 94
Fantosme's nationalism: land and people 97
Form and genre: innovation and its implications 105
Fantosme's Chronicle: sacred history 114 3 Historical romance: a genre in the making 121
The Roman d'Eneas: the birth of romance 124
Insular ‘romance'? The Romance of Horn 146 4 The English in Ireland: ideologies of race 159
Gerald of Wales: clerical historiography 166
The Song and secular history: chaotic narrative 180
Saint Patrick's Purgatory: H. de Saltrey's Tractatus and Marie de France 194 Epilogue 205 Bibliography 210
Primary texts 210
Secondary works 214 Index 240