The Places and Spaces of Alliterative Verse

Sponsoring Organization(s)

International Piers Plowman Society; Pearl-Poet Society

Organizer Name

Michael Johnston

Organizer Affiliation

Purdue Univ.

Presider Name

Ashley E. Bartelt

Presider Affiliation

Northern Illinois Univ.

Paper Title 1

Piers Plowman and the Field of Vision

Presenter 1 Name

Richard Bergen

Presenter 1 Affiliation

Univ. of British Columbia

Paper Title 2

Mountainous Couplings in Piers Plowman and Other Writings

Presenter 2 Name

Matthew Boyd Goldie

Presenter 2 Affiliation

Rider Univ.

Paper Title 3

Continuity and Bifurcation: A Metrical Study of Piers Plowman and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Presenter 3 Name

David O'Neil

Presenter 3 Affiliation

Univ. of Southern Indiana

Start Date

9-5-2019 3:30 PM

Session Location

Schneider 1325

Description

Middle English alliterative verse, particularly that produced in the West Midlands, often exhibits an ambiguous sense of place. Piers Plowman, for example, begins in the Malvern Hills, but the reader is soon whisked away to London and then across unlocalizable allegorical places. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, meanwhile, seems to have one foot in the Northwest and one in London. Many other alliterative texts seem content to float in geographical imprecision. This panel seeks papers that address the question of place and space in alliterative poetry from a variety of perspectives—formal, historical, or codicological. Papers on this panel might consider how such texts mediate the intersection of local politics and local literature; the reasons for geographical specificity/ambiguity in such texts; the role of the Midlands in the emerging late medieval book industry; or the relationship between London book production and production in less populated locales. Michael Johnston