Pulp Fictions of Medieval England : Essays in Popular Romance

Pulp Fictions of Medieval England demonstrates that popular romance not only merits and rewards serious critical attention, but that we ignore it to the detriment of our understanding of the complex and conflicted world of medieval England. Front matter Contents List of contributors A polemical introduction Incorporation in the Siege of Melayne The twin demons of aristocratic society in Sir Gowther A, A and B: coding same-sex union in Amis and Amiloun Sir Degrevant: what lovers want Putting the pulp into fiction: the lump-child and its parents in The King of Tars Eating people and the alimentary logic of Richard Coeur de Lion The Siege of Jerusalem and recuperative readings Story line and story shape in Sir Percyvell of Gales and Chrétien de Troyes’s Conte du Graal Temporary virginity and the everyday body: Le Bone Florence of Rome and bourgeois self-making Romancing the East: Greeks and Saracens in Guy of Warwick Index Although Middle English popular romance is an audacious and compendious testimony to the English Middle Ages, it remains under-read and under-studied. This study presents popular romance as worthy of critical attention and also crucial to understanding the complex world of medieval England