The paper presents literary images of medieval women in four Middle English romances, viz. King Horn, Sir Isumbras, Havelok the Dane and Sir Gawain and the Green Night. Its aim is to identify some conventional patterns of representation of female characters in the literary works classified as different subtypes of the genre of romance, namely ancestral romance (King Horn, Havelok the Dane), homiletic romance (Sir Isumbras) and Arthurian romance (Sir Gawain and the Green Knight). After Sharon Farmer and other feminist critics, the concept of gender is interpreted as one of the major categories of difference in medieval English society. This argument is supported by the analysis of the construction of female characters in the romances in question. However, while it is important to remember that the society of medieval England was to a large extent male-governed and male-dominated, which is the reason for the apparent centrality of male protagonists in medieval English literature, the function of female characters in literary works of that period is not necessarily secondary. The paper focuses on the importance of women in presenting the protagonist’s genealogy and on selected strategies of representation, such as reversal of gender roles or marginalization of female characters. The essay attempts to demonstrate that the category of gender, as it is seen in the medieval texts, cannot be reduced to a simplified model of binary oppositions, since the romances also introduce the complexity of power relations and tensions between the sexes.
A close reading of three selected passages of the Middle English alliterative romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight provides a detailed picture of fictional and fairy-tale manifestations of courtly and polite behaviour in Middle English, a period that imported many new terms of courtesy and politeness from French. In the three passages Sir Gawain is visited in his bedchamber by the lady of the house, who tries to seduce him and thus puts him in a severe dilemma of having to be courteous to the lady and at the same time loyal to his host and to the code of chivalry. The analysis shows how Sir Gawain and the lady of the house engage in a discursive struggle of the true implications of courteous behaviour. It also shows how the two characters use nominal and pronominal terms of address to negotiate their respective positions of power, dominance and submission towards each other. And, finally, an analysis of requests reveals how the lady carefully selects appropriate strategies to reflect the severity of the imposition of her requests and her momentary standing in their discursive struggle.
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