#medieval literature

[trans-cuchulainn]

i don't have the words to articulate it at this moment but there's something about the way that people have specific expectations for "authenticity" and will dismiss anything that falls outside them as a mangled, anglicised version of the thing when actually that is the older and more traditional form of something, it just doesn't match their expectations. obviously in my personal experiences i'm mostly talking about medieval literature here especially medieval irish literature

sometimes this is as simple as spelling – i've had people argue that the name "finn" is anglicised and it should always be "fionn" to be Really Irish, but "finn" is an older spelling, glide vowels are later, if you wanna go real far back it'll be "find" (nd in place of nn is an older spelling pattern). or they'll hear someone say "ogam" and assume they're mispronouncing "ogham" due to lack of knowledge of irish and not consider the fact that medievalists tend to use the older form of the word. or they'll Well Actually you about "correct" terminology which wasn't standardised (and/or invented) until the 20th century

a lot of this is defensive and the result of seeing a lot of people ACTUALLY get this stuff wrong and have no respect for the language. in that regard i understand it, although it becomes very tedious after a while, particularly when people sanctimoniously declare something "inauthentic", "fake", or "anglicised" without doing enough research to realise it's not trying to be modern irish and is in fact correct for older forms of the language

more often however this search for the projected "authenticity" is ideological and has much larger flaws and more problematic implications. "this can't be the real story because it's christian" well... that's the oldest version of the story that exists and it postdates christianity in ireland by about nine hundred years, so... maybe question why you're assuming the only "real" version of irish stories can't be a christian one? this is especially true when it comes to fíanaigecht material tbh, but in general there seems to a widespread misapprehension about ireland's historical relationship with christianity (i have seen people arguing that christianity in ireland is the result of english colonialism which took their "true" faith from them... bro. they were christian before the "english" existed. half the conversion efforts went the other way. please read some early medieval history thank you)

however i also saw someone saying this about arthurian literature lately which REALLY baffled me. "we'll never have the Real arthurian stories only the christianised versions" and it was in the context of chivalric romance. buddy you are mourning something that does not exist. this "authentic" story you're looking for isn't there. that twelfth century story you're dismissing as a christian bastardisation is as "real" a part of this tradition as you're going to get

#in general if you do not want christianity in your medieval literature maybe arthuriana is not the best choice #it is. so fucking christian #as for fíanaigecht. did they think st patrick was there by accident #the arthuriana comment took me out though. #the christianised versions. of chivalric romance. #YOU MEAN THE CHRÉTIENISED VERSIONS?? IS THAT THE PROBLEM? #anyway this is not a pro christianity statement this is a pro historical accuracy statement #medieval #medieval literature

[queer-ragnelle]

list of medieval literature with links to read.

i’ll continue to update with more texts, better scans, & different editions. enjoy!

#arthurian legend #arthurian legends #arthuriana #ulster cycle #history #medieval literature #med lit #illuminated manuscript #illuminated manuscripts #translations #translation #english translations #english translation #resource #resources #book recommendations #book reccs #arthurian preservation project #my post

[silver-peel]

Celebrating new year and ending of the quest:)🕯️🎄🪓

product of my recent green knight reread on holidays, save me erotic hunting scene...... Happy new year, hope everyone have a nice starting of the year!

for hardcore fans yes lady bertilak dress lowkey reference form manuscript (feat. burrito gawain)

#arthuriana #medieval literature #sir gawain and the green knight #arthurian legend #gawain #lady bertilak #lord bertilak #captive unicorn reference for hunting scene allegory etc etc #have a good time making those stained glass #artists on tumblr #happy new year #illustration #my art

[knaveprints]

An illustrated edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, 2022

Moving concertina book with digital illustrations and gold leaf.

Another one of my book projects that i'm finally posting. While there are certainly things I would adjust now, under the time constraints of a uni project i'm very happy with this work. Also unfortunately there is one illustration you can't see with these photos, but i'll post the image later.

#my art #sir gawain and the green knight #illustration #arthuriana #the green knight #gawain #books #book making #book binding #medieval #medieval literature

[a-study-in-dante]

March 25th, 2024 | Another day spent in Paris before a codicology seminar at the BnF.

#my posts #studyblr #litblr #gradblr #phdblr #medieval literature #Paris #Aesthetics #traveler's notebook #Paper Republic

[cloverboyblue]

surveyed all the women in the kingdom both bond and free and it turns out what women want is, in fact, sir gawain

#the marriage of sir gawen and dame ragnell #if i had a nickel for every time a man's life depended on finding out What Women Want Most. whew #i would have several nickels #medieval literature #arthurian legend

[kusurrone]

Dante writing his Comedy

#dante alighieri #divine comedy #vergil #virgil #the divine comedy #dante #la divina commedia #beatrice #beatrice portinari #divina commedia #italian literature #medieval poetry #medieval literature

[sissiarte]

Oh Gawain <3

This came to me in a vision and I had to draw it or I would explode. I honestly don't have an explanation enjoy

#Sir Gawain and the Green Knight #gawain #the green knight #arthuriana #arthurian legend #arthurian mythology #illustration #medieval literature #sir gawain #sir gwaine #so many spellings #sissarte #cw blood #cw decapitated head #but like he's fine about it

[oldschoolfrp]

For living ye olde lifestyle: To the King's Taste, Richard II's book of feasts and recipes adapted for modern cooking, Lorna J Sass, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1975. Most recipes are taken from the fourteenth-century Forme of Cury and include "a Brie and egg tart, a fruit and salmon pie, parsnip fritters, an elderflower cheesecake, stuffed loaves, spiced wine, rose hips in wine with almonds."

#cookbook #medieval #Lorna J Sass #food #SCA #food history #Lorna Sass #To the King's Taste #Richard II #14th century #Forme of Cury #medieval literature

[transelot]

I think everyone needs to see this art of Gawain in timeout

#medieval literature #medieval art #arthuriana #arthurian legend #gawain

[mask131]

The missing Arthurian knight - rediscovered in 2019

Well the title is a slight lie - the missing knight wasn't rediscovered in 2019, it was earlier than that, but he didn't became public until 2019.

So what's this "missing knight" about? Well as the title says. There was a knight part of the Arthurian myth, and he had been missing ever since the Middle-Ages, and he was only recently rediscovered.

Or rather, to be exact - there was an Arthurian novel centered around a knight that existed and was a famous and well-known part of the Arthurian literature in the Middle-Ages, but that completely disappeared, and was forgotten by culture (as much popular culture as the scholarly one). Until very recently.

This rediscovered novel has been a hot topic of all Arthuriana fans in Europe for a few years now - and yet I do not see much talk about this onto this website, despite Tumblr being a big place for Arthurian fans?

So I will correct this by doing a series of posts about the subject. And this post will be the first one, the introduction post presenting to you "Ségurant, le chevalier au dragon" ; "Segurant, the knight of the dragon". A French medieval novel part of the Arthurian literature (hence the "chevalier au X" title structure - like Lancelot, the knight of the cart or Yvain the knight of the lion from Chrétien de Troyes), the reason this story was forgotten by all medievalist and literary scholars is - long story short - because it never existed in any full manuscript (at least none that survived to this day). It was a complete story yes, with even variations apparently, but that was cut into pieces and fragments inserted into various other manuscripts and texts (most notably various "Merlin's Prophecies").

The novel and the Knight of the Dragon were rediscovered through the work of Emanuele Arioli, who rediscovered a fragment of the story while looking at an old manuscript of a Merlin Prophecies, and then went on the hunt for the other fragments and pieces scattered around Europe, until he finally could compile the full story, that he then published in 2019, at the Belles Lettres publishing house, in 2019.

Arioli reconstructed the text, and translated it in both modern French and Italian for scholarly and professional editions (aka Honoré Champion in France, a reference for universities)...

... But also for a more "all public, found in all libraries" edition - the famous 2019 edition at Les Belles Lettres.

And not only that, but he also participated to both a comic book adaptation with Emiliano Tanzillo...

... and an adaptation as an illustrated children novel!

Finally, just a few weeks, the Franco-German channel Arte released a documentary about the reconstitution and content of this missing novel called "Le Chevalier au dragon: Le roman disparu de la Table Ronde". (The Knight of the Dragon - The missing novel of the Round Table). The full documentary is on Youtube in French for those that speak the language, here. And in German here for those who speak German.

Unfortunately there is no English version of the documentary that I know of, nor any English publications of the actual text - just French and Italian. But hey, I'll try to palliate to that by doing some English-speaking posts about this whole business!

#ségurant #segurant #the knight of the dragon #le chevalier au dragon #arthuriana #arthurian myth #arthurian literature #arthurian novel #discoveries #medieval literature #arthurian legend #arthurian knights #found media #lost media #that people didn't even know was lost

[gailyinthedark]

Today we found my husband's old copy of Gawain and the Green Knight from his university days. It has terrible, terrible 1980's cover art, coffee stains, and little notes in the margins that say things like Guinevere toughs it out or Arthur is painted as a foolish cuckold in my husband's handwriting but the handwriting is younger, it's familiar but not fully developed the way I know it. He's written his name inside the cover in faux medieval script. I didn't know it was possible to crush on the person your spouse was before you ever met them.

#arthuriana #husband #gawain and the green knight #eugene vinaver #medieval literature #i adore this man #mush

[francislibrary]

reading date

#dark academia #aesthetic #dark academia aesthetic #academic #books #bookaddict #booknerd #aesthetic book #bookblr #book blog #victorian #victorian house #light academia #light academia aesthetic #medieval literature

[lionofchaeronea]

The dying Beowulf, having just defeated the dragon, is supported by his ally Wiglaf. Illustration by George T. Tobin from Siegfried, the Hero of the North, and Beowulf, the Hero of the Anglo-Saxons by Zenaide A. Ragozin, published in 1909. Now in the New York Public Library.

#art #art history #George T. Tobin #illustration #Beowulf #Germanic mythology #Old English #Old English literature #Middle Ages #medieval #medieval literature #American art #20th century art #New York Public Library

[how-do-i-do-words]

this idea made me almost laugh out loud in class so i decided to make and post it (even if most people probably won't get it/think it's funny)

#sir gawain #arthurian legend #memes #this took way longer to make than it should have #gawain #the green knight #medieval #medieval literature

[maniculum]

Google Docs vs. Thomas Malory

I'm working on the Malory chapter of my dissertation, and at one point Google Docs' spellcheck red-underlined a word but failed to provide a suggestion.

I thought it was odd that Google Docs was unable to spot the fact that I'd dropped an R, and then I recalled hearing recently that Google had started using a machine-learning-powered spellcheck that was, frankly, terrible.

Incidentally, clicking "Why am I not seeing a suggestion?" takes you to a section of their Support page that reads as follows:

Words where spelling is not recognized are underlined in red to warn you of a possible misspelling. When you click on the word, you'll see a "Spelling" label. If there is no spelling suggestion available, you can choose to edit the word, add the word to your personal dictionary, or ignore the suggestion.

Note that this does not answer the question, which to me implies that the real answer is "because it's crap". (Quick aside: I'm not one who is generally inclined to trust spellcheck anyway, as I am in my 30s and remember when "blindly taking spellcheck's suggestions" was something one would get mocked for, but I am annoyed that it's actively getting worse.)

So I decided to play with Google Docs a bit and see what it had to say about all the words it was underlining in the Malory quotations. (This may be a bit unfair, since "modernize 15th-century spelling" is not a function spellcheck is meant to have, but I also think that ruining a perfectly adequate spellcheck system with machine learning isn't fair to its users, so they started it.

Some of my favorite results below the cut.

Okay, that's also not a Modern English word. It's still Middle English, just a different variant spelling. Google Docs, you are out of your lane here.

This is not in the OED, and Googling it reveals that it's a surname. Weird guess here, Google Docs. At least capitalize it if you want me to lump Mx. DeVellis in with the fiends.

Buddy (derogatory), I don't think that one's correct either.

I thought this was just nonsense guessing, but apparently there's a company called "Bonwyke" that sells window films. You know, I'm somehow not surprised that the machine knows the names of corporations.

Google Docs failed to even come up with a suggestion for about half the words it underlined, which is fair, but the ones that stumped it include the following off-by-one-letter spellings:

calle ("call")

mayden ("maiden")

nyght ("night")

It's also continuing with this malarkey:

Google Docs, worstie -- you have got to learn what an abbreviation is. This isn't even an uncommon one. Why do they confuse you every time? If you're really using machine learning, surely you should eventually figure out that periods are used for purposes other than ending a sentence.

Anyway, I'm only three pages into writing this chapter, so I may well come back with more of these, but in the meantime allow me to leave you with a spelling suggestion that I just think is funny.

The Strongest Wayne. And Percival did what to him?

#damnable machines #thomas malory #le morte d'arthur #medieval literature #academia