Of Remembraunce the Keye: Medieval Literature and Its Impact Through the Ages

The papers in this book examine the thematic, structural and aesthetic relationship between medieval English literature and a wide variety of more recent modern texts. Some of the contributors re-examine the concepts of authority and representation in Chrétien and Malory and of medieval romance and the modern novel, while Caxton’s <I>Morte Darthur </I>is interpreted from the point of view of Norbert Elias; other focuses of interest are the love-death motif in nineteenth-century novels, the comic in contemporary British fiction, the literary representations of Arthurian characters (Galahad, Tristan, Gawain), and recent <I>Beowulf </I>translations. In addition, there are socio-historic and generic readings of Chaucer’s <I>Sir Thopas</I> and of <I>Troilus and Criseyde, </I>of <I>Ipomadon </I>and Malory’s <I>Morte Darthur. </I>Aspects of medieval heritage are uncovered in Horace Walpole, Fürst Pückler-Muskau, Georg Kaiser, A. S. Byatt, David Lodge, Fay Weldon, Iris Murdoch, the Irish novelist Eamonn Sweeney and the Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski, in William Gibson’s cyberpunk novel <I>Neuromancer </I>and Peter Ackroyd’s recent <I>Clerkenwell Tales. </I>In addition, there is a translation of Karl Heinz Göller’s former essay on Chancer’s <I>Troilus and Criseyde</I>.