Crusade and Literary Genre
Sponsoring Organization(s)
School of Modern Languages and Cultures, Durham Univ.
Organizer Name
Luke Sunderland
Organizer Affiliation
Durham Univ.
Presider Name
Giles E. M. Gasper
Presider Affiliation
Durham Univ.
Paper Title 1
Crusade and World History in the Chansons de Geste
Presenter 1 Name
Luke Sunderland
Paper Title 2
The Unrepentant Crusader in Lyric and Romance
Presenter 2 Name
Marisa Galvez
Presenter 2 Affiliation
Stanford Univ.
Paper Title 3
Figuring Arab Imperium in the Chansons de Geste
Presenter 3 Name
Shirin A. Khanmohamadi
Presenter 3 Affiliation
San Francisco State Univ.
Start Date
15-5-2015 1:30 PM
Session Location
Valley II Garneau 205
Description
This panel will examine the differing treatment of the idea of crusade in the medieval genres of the chanson de geste, lyric, romance and chronicle, arguing that crusade constitutes a common thread that allows individual texts to unite disparate generic elements or to dialogue with other genres, and thus to shape broad ethical or historical contentions. Luke Sunderland (Durham University) will focus on how the crusade elements of the chansons de geste lead to the crossing of generic boundaries in texts like the thirteenth-century Huon de Bordeaux and the fourteenth-century Huon d’Auvergne, where the depiction of the East to which the main character travels is shaped by material coming from romance, folklore and travel writing, thus placing individual heroic quests within an ethical framework (good versus evil) and a global, historical schema (universal monarchy and the West conquering the East). Marisa Galvez (Stanford University) intends to examine how courtly tropes in crusade love lyric change or are adapted in romance in the first half of the thirteenth century (for example, Lancelot is exemplary figure in crusade lyric, but then in Perlesvaus, he is an unrepentant crusader), and to argue that through this generic comparison one can see how figures such as Lancelot, or the convention of the heart separated from the body, show the emergence of a particular crusader-lover discourse in tension with a crusade orthodoxy increasingly prescribing repentant expressions of the heart or external acts of piety. Shirin A. Khanmohamadi (San Francisco State University) will argue against the prevailing synchronic reading of the chansons de geste as the locus of civilizational confrontation between Frank and Saracen, instead suggesting that the transfer of objects of war from Saracens or Turks to Franks in a number of chansons de geste (Raoul de Cambrai, La Prise d’Orange, the Chanson de Roland) constitutes evidence of diachronic and historical thinking and expresses of the translation of imperium from Arabs to Franks. This reading will be placed within the broader context of attempts by medieval chroniclers at the time of the crusades to account for the imperium of Arabs (Abbassids, Andalusians) and Turks (Seljuks) within a universal historical frame.
Luke Sunderland
Crusade and Literary Genre
Valley II Garneau 205
This panel will examine the differing treatment of the idea of crusade in the medieval genres of the chanson de geste, lyric, romance and chronicle, arguing that crusade constitutes a common thread that allows individual texts to unite disparate generic elements or to dialogue with other genres, and thus to shape broad ethical or historical contentions. Luke Sunderland (Durham University) will focus on how the crusade elements of the chansons de geste lead to the crossing of generic boundaries in texts like the thirteenth-century Huon de Bordeaux and the fourteenth-century Huon d’Auvergne, where the depiction of the East to which the main character travels is shaped by material coming from romance, folklore and travel writing, thus placing individual heroic quests within an ethical framework (good versus evil) and a global, historical schema (universal monarchy and the West conquering the East). Marisa Galvez (Stanford University) intends to examine how courtly tropes in crusade love lyric change or are adapted in romance in the first half of the thirteenth century (for example, Lancelot is exemplary figure in crusade lyric, but then in Perlesvaus, he is an unrepentant crusader), and to argue that through this generic comparison one can see how figures such as Lancelot, or the convention of the heart separated from the body, show the emergence of a particular crusader-lover discourse in tension with a crusade orthodoxy increasingly prescribing repentant expressions of the heart or external acts of piety. Shirin A. Khanmohamadi (San Francisco State University) will argue against the prevailing synchronic reading of the chansons de geste as the locus of civilizational confrontation between Frank and Saracen, instead suggesting that the transfer of objects of war from Saracens or Turks to Franks in a number of chansons de geste (Raoul de Cambrai, La Prise d’Orange, the Chanson de Roland) constitutes evidence of diachronic and historical thinking and expresses of the translation of imperium from Arabs to Franks. This reading will be placed within the broader context of attempts by medieval chroniclers at the time of the crusades to account for the imperium of Arabs (Abbassids, Andalusians) and Turks (Seljuks) within a universal historical frame.
Luke Sunderland