Browsing by Subject "Romance"

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Chante(Fable) : romance, parody, and the medieval in Aucassin et Nicolette and Lionhead Studios’ Fable
(2015-08) Holterman, Nicholas Robert; Scala, Elizabeth, 1966-; Birkholz, Daniel
The romance was one of the most popular genres of medieval literature during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. While it is difficult to enumerate the universal characteristics shared by all romances, there are similar elements present in many. Aucassin et Nicolette, the unique thirteenth-century chantefable, has intentionally adopted these elements and manipulated them in such a way that parodies the romances put forth by Chrétien de Troyes. The video game Fable comprises a unique structural form that echoes that of Aucassin et Nicolette and, despite its creation nearly eight hundred years later, belongs to the medieval tradition of parody. This report will explore how the various motifs, such as the hero quest, the battle sequence, and the fantastic world, are imitated and manipulated by Fable and Aucassin et Nicolette in their self-conscious attempts to parody medieval romance conventions. In the era of Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings, popular culture is be obsessed with medievalism. Fable, however, is categorically medieval rather than post-medieval because of the structure it shares with Aucassin et Nicolette. Together, these works self-consciously employ techniques that deride the romance conventions, and intentionally resist conforming to medieval public expectations.
Cultural capital : production and reproduction in Emaré
(2012-08) Bristol, Abigail R.; Scala, Elizabeth, 1966-; Lesser, Wayne
Using the central romance narrative object in the Breton Lay Emaré, the anonymous poet creates a conversation highlighting the importance of class structure, religious difference, chivalric duty, the generic traditions of romance, imperial wealth, desire, and power within the narrative. The protagonist, Emaré, serves as the focus for a version of the traditional calumniated wife narrative, with few distinctions, the most intriguing of which is the focus on the particular textile that identifies her. This paper investigates how the textile and Emaré herself demonstrate the importance of production and reproduction—the fruits of both kinds of labor enabling her son to inherit two empires and their associated capitalist wealth, a social value that the likely middle class audience would have admired. This combined both the traditional dynastic focus of romance narratives with a capitalist, mercantile one, suggesting a move away from a chivalric, martial culture to one based around economic production.
Cultures of conquest : romancing the East in medieval England and France
(2009-08) Wilcox, Rebecca Anne; Heng, Geraldine; Birkholz, Daniel, 1967-
Cultures of Conquest argues for the recognition of a significant and vital subcategory of medieval romance that treats the crusades as one of its primary interests, beginning at the time of the First Crusade and extending through the end of the Middle Ages. Many romances, even those not explicitly located in crusades settings, evoke and transform crusades events and figures to serve the purposes of the readers, commissioners, and authors of these texts. The prevalence of crusade images and themes in romance testifies to medieval Europe's intense preoccupation with the East in its multiple manifestations, both Christian and Muslim. The introductory chapter situates the Song of Roland (c. 1100) as a hybrid epicromance text that has long set the standard for modern thinking about medieval European attitudes toward the East. The following chapters, however, complicate the Song of Roland's black-and-white portrayal of Muslims as "wrong" and Christians as "right." Chapter Two, focusing on the Middle English romances Guy of Warwick and Sir Beues of Hamtoun, demonstrates the extreme "othering" of Muslims that occurred in medieval romance; but it also acknowledges the antagonism of other Christians (whether Eastern or European) in these texts. In Chapter Three, on romances with Saracen heroes (Floire et Blancheflor, the Sowdone of Babylone, and Saladin), I show how these texts reimagine the East as a desirable ally and even incorporate Saracens into European genealogies, seeking a more conciliatory relationship between East and West than is provided by the romances discussed in the previous chapter. My fourth chapter shows how gender mediates cultural contact in Melusine and La Fille du Comte de Ponthieu: women, as the cornerstones of important crusading families, were invested in crusading and were imagined as key to the success of the crusades. The epilogue offers a brief reading of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (emphasizing the "Squire's Tale" and the "Man of Law's Tale") within a long and varied tradition of medieval crusade romance. I argue that Chaucer works to replace a literary climate that idealizes violent conflict between East and West with one that imagines the possibility and desirability of commercial relationships with the East in England's future.
Genre trouble : embodied cognition in fabliaux, chivalric romance, and Latin chronicle
(2014-05) Widner, Michael; Heng, Geraldine; Johnson, Michael A., 1976-
This dissertation examines the intersection between theories of body and of genre through the lens of cognitive science. It focuses, in particular, on representations of bodies in exemplars of fabliaux in Old French and Middle English, chivalric romance that feature the figure of Sir Gawain, and the Latin Chronicle of Bury St Edmunds. This dissertation establishes genre theory on cognitive-scientific ground by considering how embodied cognition influences both theories of genre and the representations of bodies. It argues that, rather than a container into which works fit, genre is a network of associations created in the minds of authors and audiences. This network finds expression in the bodies of characters, which differ across genres. It argues, moreover, that genre and bodies influence, in fundamental ways, interpretations of literary works. Finally, this work discusses the possibilities for future research using methods for quantitative textual analysis and data visualization common in the digital humanities.
The "Perfect" Romantic Comedy: An Exploration in Data-Driven Creativity
(2023-05) Minkowitz, Julia
By assigning numeric factors to qualitative aspects of Romantic Comedy movies, particularly the highest grossing Romantic Comedies, a data model will be constructed to determine what creates a "perfect" Romantic Comedy in terms of commercial success. While data is powerful in the determination of how business decisions should be made, should the same logic be applied to creative fields? While, of course, art is not always meant to reach commercial success, would the achievement of such a thing be considered art at all? In determination of this experiment, a screenplay that is made up of these "perfect" attributes will be constructed. The central question data-driven creativity is not a definite yes or no answer. Rather, it is in a gray area where data can both drive creativity and be a limiting factor. Seeing as data constrains the creator of art, it can be a limiting factor. Yet, with one's own biases and preferences, it can establish one to go out of their comfort zone. Creativity is a journey, not a destination. Data can provide a map on this quest, but will not provide everything needed to make a creative work viable.
A search for fun, love, or equality : boys' love fiction and fans in China
(2010-08) Huang, Pengli; Stone, Allucquère Rosanne
In this research I address the phenomenon of female fans’ fascination with online boys’ love fiction in China, and the discussion centers on the questions of why these women are interested in the boys’ love theme, why they prefer boys’ love to traditional heterosexual romance, and how they define and identify with male–male relationships in the boys’ love fiction. Through focusing research on a popular Chinese online-fiction website for women (www.jjwxc.net), I use historical review, online observations, and content analysis of online boys’ love fiction to collect data on my research questions. Understanding female fans’ expectation of and attitudes towards love and romance and analyzing the content of boys’ love fiction allow for a comprehension of the interactions of gender, sexuality, identity, and culture in shaping these women’s practice and choice of boys’ love genre in China.
The human animal: strange transformations in fourteenth-century Middle English romance
(2018-06-11) Gutierrez-Neal, Paula Christina; Birkholz, Daniel, 1967-; Heng, Geraldine; Blockley, Mary; Davis, Diane D; Biow, Douglas
This dissertation investigates fourteenth-century Middle English romances’ questioning of medieval definitions of the human and nonhuman animal. While the field of animal studies conceptually understands the redundancy in the phrase human animal, medieval thought focused less on a model of human and nonhuman animal and more often depicted a binary opposition of human against and above the animal. Largely set by the works of Thomas Aquinas, this prevailing medieval definition of the human defined the human as rational other animals as irrational and object-like. Yet certain romances revise the paradigm of the human as the rational animal in such a way as to undermine its presumption of human exceptionalism and reinscribe the human into the category of animal. The Middle English chivalric romance of the fourteenth century plays on and reinterprets its French and Anglo-Norman predecessors to emphasize a full reimagining of animal definitions. In demonstrating this phenomenon, this project first demonstrates the break down the definition of human as exceptional animal via rationality in Bevis of Hampton: chapter one examines the rational and affective portrayal of the horse Arondel and suggests said horse enters a state of becoming-hero. This dissertation then builds upon that fracture to exhibit a reversal of the hunter/hunted roles that further displace the human from its place in the species hierarchy in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: the second chapter explores the depiction of Sir Gawain’s courtly test as a hunting sequence all its own in which Gawain ultimately skins himself of his hide. The project then concludes by illustrating human and nonhuman animal definitions as based in performance more than divinely-granted exceptionalism in William of Palerne: chapter three considers how representations of transformed and disguised characters invite confusion between species categories through comedic playacting. This research implies that, at least safely within the fantasy of romance, fourteenth-century England exhibited a fascination with questioning contemporary paradigms and an unexpected freedom to imagine an alternative definition of human and nonhuman identity.
Utopic / dystopic mirroring : the romance and the picaresque in the Spanish and Russian traditions
(2018-12-06) Šetek, Nika; Harney, Michael, 1948-; Garza, Thomas J.; Sutherland-Meier, Madeline; Reed, Cory
This dissertation explores the relationship between the romance and the picaresque and their mirroring structures of correlated utopianism/dystopianism through the Spanish and Russian traditions. The romance and the picaresque are related modes: while the romance is a utopic vision of life as a quest, the picaresque is its carnivalesque inversion. The two modes are mirror images of each other, and while the romance is predominantly utopic, the picaresque is primarily dystopic. I argue that, in addition to a dominant utopianism/dystopianism, each of these modes contain recessive undertones – dystopic in the romance, and utopic in the picaresque – which are indispensable to their structure. I trace this pattern of utopianism/dystopianism through different types of romance and picaresque texts, beginning with the most popular Spanish chivalric romance, Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo’s 16th century Amadís de Gaula, in which the dominant utopianism is accompanied by numerous dystopic disruptions, which are necessary to move the plot forward, but which showcase the futility of the knight’s efforts. Similarly, in the Russian socialist romance, such as Nikolai Chernyshevsky’s 1863 novel Что делать? (What Is to Be Done?), the dystopic undertone is a necessary motivation for the achievement of a revolutionary utopia. I further show that, through a carnivalesque inversion, the picaresque creates a contrasting structure in which recessive utopianism underlies the dominant dystopianism. In the Early Modern Spanish picaresque texts, such as the anonymous Lazarillo de Tormes (1554), Mateo Alemán’s Guzmán de Alfarache (1599) and Francisco de Quevedo’s El buscón (The Swindler, 1626), the pícaro is moved by a belief that he can rise above his birth and circumstances, disrupting the strict hierarchy that the chivalric romance promotes. In Venedikt Erofeev’s Москва - Петушки (Moscow to the End of the Line, 1970), the Soviet pícaro believes in a personal paradise that exists just out of reach, in which he could be free from restrictions of life in the USSR. My analysis of these texts is primarily informed by Northtrop Frye’s work on the romance, particularly The Secular Scripture: A Study of the Structure of Romance, and Mikhail Bakhtin’s writing on carnival and the carnivalesque.