week 4

Question 1

romance: general characteristics - happy ending

Answer 1

• something is achieved: an idea or ideal proves itself
• romances will always finish well –> the ideal has to be proven

Question 2

romance: general characteristics - larger world, more inclusive than everyday life

Answer 2

‘heightened’ reality
- giants = parents and parental restraints
- faeries = naughty people
- forest = life in nature, being wilde sometimes even madness
- castle = organized life, rules of the court, it can stand for force, oppressors and arrogance

Question 3

epic

Answer 3

• a new genre in english literature
• early middle ages: epic was highest style
• epic celebrates hero who redeems his people in their hour of need against insurmountable odds in physical fights
• epic ideals: leader and follower, mutual relationship, everlasting glory
• form: alliterative verse, long poem

Question 4

chivalry

Answer 4

special code developed by knights
- prowess in battle (on horseback)
- ritualized battle (tournaments/hunting)
–> they have to stay active/exercise
- trouthe = loyalty
- curteisie = helpful, tender, generous, behaviour
- humble
- defence of the poor and vulnerable
- Marian devotion

Question 5

chaucer and antifeminism

Answer 5

medieval view of women
- clerical misogyny VS aristocrative ‘courtly love’
Chaucer takes the middle position
- equality in marriage between man and woman

Question 6

medieval romance: origin and form

Answer 6

• origin = france (1150 - 1160)
• term = Romanz is the old French, vernacular (‘low’) as opposed to latin (‘high’)
• form = narrative verse, octosyllabic, often, long –> later prose
• authors = clerks/minstrels (oral performative tradition)
• performance = oral, communal
• audience = court

Question 7

romance: general characteristics - everything is laden with symbolic significance

Answer 7

both ‘special features’
- mirror on the wall –> facing the truth
and ‘ordinary’ aspects
- a meal –> celebrating unity
- white –> good VS black –> bad

Question 8

romance: general characteristics

Answer 8

• larger world, more inclusive then everyday life
• everything is laden with symbolic significance
• idealistic
• happy ending
• special narrative logic

Question 9

romance: general characteristics - idealistic

Answer 9

ideals or ideas of conduct (virtues) are shown in action
- the western a good guy says: ‘a man has to do what a man has to do’ (of conduct)

Question 10

romance: genre

Answer 10

idealistic stories
- concentrates on the here and now, you can relate to them
- ideals govern the plot, character represent them
more interested in ethics and morals than heroics
super human ideas –> super realistic world
supernatural characters/happenings
- wizards
- garden that is in bloom in January
‘higher’- ness of ideals rendered by a symbolic logic (rather than a realistic one)

Question 11

medieval romance: background

Answer 11

high middle ages (1100 - 1310)
normans introduce feudalism (hierarchy: lord vs vassal) –> pyramid scheme
- king distributes land to the ones below him
- the ones below are always dependant on the ones above
stable courts develop, with leisure time and with new rituals (etiquette) with new heroes
urban on crusading knights (first crusade 1095)

Question 12

romance: general characteristics - special narrative logic

Answer 12

completely unrealistic
- the hero cut himself out of the belly of a lion

Question 13

romance through time

Answer 13

every age has had romance
- all of these subgenres share the same characteristics as the upper genre of romance
–> folktale, fairy-tale, saints life, westerns, fantasy, mystery, horror, science-fiction
In the middle ages
- (saints life), romance of chivalry