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Outsiders

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Sylvia Huot argues that the presence of giants in French prose romances demonstrates fantasies of conflict and conquest and the suppression of alternative trajectories in Arthurian Britain.
“Tracing the treatment of giants from the Bible through the later medieval pe... Read More
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  • Publication Date: 15 July 2016
  • ISBN: 9780268031121
  • Pages: 360
  • Imprint: University of Notre Dame Press

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Giants are a ubiquitous feature of medieval romance. As remnants of a British prehistory prior to the civilization established, according to the Historium regum Britannie, by Brutus and his Trojan followers, giants are permanently at odds with the chivalric culture of the romance world. Whether they are portrayed as brute savages or as tyrannical pagan lords, giants serve as a limit against which the chivalric hero can measure himself. In Outsiders: The Humanity and Inhumanity of Giants in Medieval French Prose Romance, Sylvia Huot argues that the presence of giants allows for fantasies of ethnic and cultural conflict and conquest, and for the presentation—and suppression—of alternative narrative and historical trajectories that might have made Arthurian Britain a very different place. Focusing on medieval French prose romance and drawing on aspects of postcolonial theory, Huot examines the role of giants in constructions of race, class, gender, and human subjectivity. She selects for study the well-known prose Lancelot and the prose Tristan, as well as the lesser known Perceforest, Le Conte du papegau, Guiron le Courtois, and Des Grantz Geants. By asking to what extent views of giants in Arthurian romance respond to questions that concern twenty-first-century readers, Huot demonstrates the usefulness of current theoretical concepts and the issues they raise for rethinking medieval literature from a modern perspective.

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Price: $40.00
Pages: 360
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
Imprint: University of Notre Dame Press
Publication Date: 15 July 2016
Trim Size: 9.00 X 6.00 in
ISBN: 9780268031121
Format: Paperback
BISACs:

“Tracing the treatment of giants from the Bible through the later medieval period, the study embraces large themes: humanity and inhumanity, religious fervor, violence, assimilation, love, desire, sacrifice, construction of racial and ethnic difference. . . . With few exceptions, giants, unmourned in death, are the irredeemable Other whose antagonism and precarious survival are essential to the construction and continuity of idealized Western Christian culture. Highly recommended.” —Choice

Sylvia Huot is professor of medieval French literature and a Fellow of Pembroke College, University of Cambridge.

Acknowledgments

List of Illustrations

Introduction

  1. Inhuman Men and Knightly Fiends: The Vexed Humanity of Giants
  2. An Alien Presence: Giants as Markers of Race, Class, and Culture
  3. Touching the Absolute: Violence, Death, and Love
  4. Giants and Saracens in the Prose Tristan: Rival Narratives, Hostile Desires, and the Struggle to (Re)write History
  5. Outsiders in the Story: Galehot, Palamedes, and Saladin
  6. Desire, Subjectivity, and the Humanity of Giants

Conclusion Notes

Bibliography

Index