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example, Gwyn Williams also called her the ‘Helen of Wales’ in his popular and well-received When Was Wales? , as did Brynley Roberts in his survey of Gerald of Wales. 3 Nest’s beauty is a central motif in all interpretations of her and is key to the construction of her as the ‘Welsh Helen’. Her beauty is emphasised in other genres, such as modern popular interpretations of her in creative fiction. Her inscription as a great beauty is a result of interpretations of the Brut , and her beauty authorises the actions of Owain ap Cadwgan’s abduction. The following
As a disciplinary formation, medieval studies has long been structured by authoritative hierarchies and conservative scholarly decorums; the associated fear of error in medieval studies dates back to the Renaissance and the Protestant reformation. In contrast, medievalism increasingly celebrates creative play and imaginative invention. Such invention inevitably produces anxiety about historical accuracy. Popular scholarship and journalism in turn are often attracted to the abject otherness of the Middle Ages, especially the torture practices associated with its judicial systems. Such practices are designed to solicit the truth, and so, like illness, mortality and death, they are a useful double trope through which to analyse the relationship between medieval and medievalist approaches to the past.
and post-medieval versions of that past. As a curious, affective hook for modern readers, the old chair feeds the desire shared by the historical and medievalist imagination to feel, touch and see the medieval past in all its dramatic immediacy, whether that impulse is creative or more scholarly. This episode certainly appeals to the archivist’s excitement about seeing an authentic source in an
. This held true for medieval historians and historicist literary critics trying to get back to the historical past and free it from modern preconceptions, as well as practitioners of medievalism asserting their right to reconstruct the Middle Ages using methods that might well be scholarly, but that might equally be more creative and inventive. No matter what the social, intellectual, personal or
that same text by one particular reader is also likely to vary at different moments or across time. And all readers, from the scholar to the beginner, are capable of deliberate and accidental misconstrual, misunderstanding, or reading against the grain, although all these readings can still only ever be within a range that is contextually and culturally appropriate, however innovative or creative the reading is. Salter, Popular reading in English.indd 225 21/05/2012 10:15:12 226 Popular reading in English c. 1400–1600 The evidence that I discuss in this book
’ (whether we regard it as locatively or ideologically defined) permitted the adaptation of neo-Platonism to the goal of developing a mechanistic account of nature, whereby the initial creative activity of God could be distinguished from the secondary causes that continued to animate the world. 9 This achieved what Marie-Dominique Chenu termed the development of a mechanistic, as opposed to a symbolic, understanding of nature – in short, its desacralisation. 10 Thus, Thierry would write in his commentary on De inventione that the study of
manuscript raises questions about the role and prioritisation of orality for the manuscript’s compiler and its readers, and the book also provides some evidence for the possibilities of creative readings or mis-reading of specific items. The remainder of this introductory chapter is divided into two main sections. The first addresses critical issues which lead to the formation of a vocabulary for the discussion of reading practice and experience. The second addresses the nature of the evidence used in this book including the approach I take to the formation of case studies
The narrative of Nest as a romantic tale which is blurred by hard political realities has inspired creative writers and populist interpretations of modern Wales. Such interpretations are derived from late-nineteenth-century interpretations of the Welsh medieval past, especially that of Edward Laws (1888) later endorsed by Lloyd (1911). The importance of Nest as the ‘Helen of Wales’ as a narrative which interlinks with a broader theme of Welsh resistance to Norman incursion relates to Victorian Anglo-Saxonism. Interpretations of medieval
the communicative 42 The Scottish Legendary resources generally available. In effect, it reinstates the ancient linkage between rhetoric and poetics[.]33 Rhetoric, the eloquent and persuasive usage of language, and poetics, the creative principles underlying a text, are regarded as two sides of the same coin. Based on its linguistic structures and means, a text has functions and may influence the audience, which requires the text’s embedding in social, historical, and cultural contexts. It is not a coincidence that rhetorical and pragmatic approaches to
imports of goods, fuelling further demand for expert services and skills from abroad, and leaving permanent markers on spoken and written language. We therefore need to reflect not only on how immigrants to England in the later Middle Ages were able, so comparatively easily, to become ‘English’, but also on how Englishness itself adapted and changed to reflect a continuous and creative process of acculturation. Notes 1 A Relation … of the Island of England , pp. 20–1. See the similar reflections