Date of Award
2016
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
English
Committee Chair
Joseph Taylor
Committee Member
Chad Thomas
Committee Member
Jeffery Nelson
Subject(s)
Gawain--(Legendary character)--Romances., Marie--de France--active 12th century--Yonec., Human-animal relationships in literature., Ecocriticism., Philosophy of nature in literature., Animal rights--Political aspects.
Abstract
In The Avowyng of Arthur, the King brings back to Carlisle “Bothe the birde and the brede” (491), a reference to the boar he slew and the lady his knights won in the forest. This conjunction of woman and meat on a single line illustrates the political tension in the text between what it is to be human and conversely, what it is to be animal. In addition, in Yonec the knight Muldumarec repeatedly transforms into a hawk, blurring the biological boundaries between animal and human. Although critics have frequently attended to the symbolic roles animals play in both these poems, they have failed to note the political impact of animals, and perhaps more significantly, animalization in these and other medieval texts. Using critical animal theory to examine these texts, I argue that it is through the process of animalizing others that the sovereign both defines and limits itself.
Recommended Citation
Moore, Sarah, "Animals and sovereignty : the politization of bodies in the Avowyng of Arthur and Yonec" (2016). Theses. 183.
https://louis.uah.edu/uah-theses/183