The English "Loathly Lady" Tales: Boundaries, Traditions, Motifs
Textes rassemblés par S. Elizabeth Passmore et Susan Carter
Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, coll. "Studies in Medieval Culture" n° 48. 2007, xix-272p.
Isbn 13 (ean): 978-1-58044-124-7
Recension de cet ouvrage par Misty Schieberle (University of Kansas) dans The Medieval Review, TMR 08.11.13.
Présentation de l'éditeur:
“In the earliest versions [of the Loathly Lady tales], the Irish sovereignty hag tales, her excessive body allegorizes the nature of sovereignty; the Loathly Lady is the shape of success in power contestation. Because the vehicle of the allegory is gendered, however, and because the motif's fictional flesh is sexually active, these ideas about control are entangled with personal power politics. These factors make the motif curiously promiscuous, an intersection of ideas that generates other ideas, sometimes unexpectedly, always provocatively. . . . “This volume concentrates on the medieval English Loathly Lady tales, written a little later than the Irish tales, and developing the motif as a vehicle for social ideology. Geoffrey Chaucer's "Wife of Bath's Tale" and John Gower's "Tale of Florent" are the better known of the English Loathly Lady tales, but "The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle," the balladic versions—the "Marriage of Sir Gawain" and "King Henry" (and even "Thomas of Erceldoune")—all use shape-shifting female flesh to convey ideas about the nature of women, about heretosexual relations, and about national identity.” (extrait de l' introduction).
Sommaire:
Through the Counsel of a Lady: The Irish and English Loathly Lady Tales and the “Mirrors for Princes” Genre
- S. Elizabeth Passmore
The Politics of Strengthe and Vois in Gower's Loathly Lady Tale
- R. F. Yeager
Sovereignty through the Lady: “The Wife of Bath's Tale” and the Queenship of Anne of Bohemia
- Elizabeth M. Biebel-Stanley
A Hymenation of Hags
- Susan Carter
Folklore and Powerful Women in Gower's “Tale of Florent”
- Russell A. Peck
Controlling the Loathly Lady, or What Really Frees Dame Ragnelle
- Paul Gaffney
“The Marriage of Sir Gawain”: Piecing the Fragments Together
- Stephanie Hollis
A Jungian Approach to the Ballad “King Henry”
- Mary Edwards Shaner
Repainting the Lion: “The Wife of Bath's Tale” and a Traditional British Ballad
- Lynn M. Wollstadt
Why Dame Ragnell Had to Die: Feminine Usurpation of Male Authority in “The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell”
- Mary Leech
Brains or Beauty: Limited Sovereignty in the Loathly Lady Tales “The Wife of Bath's Tale,”
“Thomas of Erceldoune,” and “The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle”
- Ellen M. Caldwell