Feeling the Pain in Arthurian Literature: Wounds, Sickness, and Emotion

Sponsoring Organization(s)

Arthurian Literature

Organizer Name

David F. Johnson, Elizabeth Archibald

Organizer Affiliation

Florida State Univ., Durham Univ.

Presider Name

David F. Johnson

Paper Title 1

Malory’s Thighs and Launcelot’s Buttock: Wounds and Moral Transgression in the Morte Darthur

Presenter 1 Name

Karen Cherewatuk

Presenter 1 Affiliation

St. Olaf College

Paper Title 2

"A Dedly Sowne": Pain, Pathos, and Swooning in Malory's Morte Darthur

Presenter 2 Name

Megan Leitch

Presenter 2 Affiliation

Cardiff Univ.

Paper Title 3

Weeping, Wounds, and Worshyp in Malory's Morte Darthur

Presenter 3 Name

Kevin S. Whetter

Presenter 3 Affiliation

Acadia Univ.

Start Date

11-5-2013 3:30 PM

Session Location

Fetzer 1045

Description

Feeling the Pain in Arthurian Literature: Wounds, Sickness and Emotion

Medievalists and other scholars are currently very interested in the rapidly growing field of medical humanities: how physical and psychological conditions are described in literary texts, what role they play in the plot, and how they correlate with modern understanding of psychology and physiology. In this session we will explore this topic in relation to Arthurian literature, in which intense emotions, madness, disabilities and wounds (both symbolic and physical) play key roles.