The Uses of the Past in 'Sir Orfeo'

Riddy, Felicity

doi:10.2307/3506383

Cited by 9 publications

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“…Similarly, the wilderness into which Orfeo wanders during his self‐imposed exile has been described as a ‘psychological landscape’ that mirrors his grief (Cartlidge 5) and reflects developmental states (Veldhoen 103); these critics have interpreted Orfeo's grief as the catalyst for the cyclical plot of the poem. Others emphasise that feeling is conveyed almost entirely as ‘outward expression’ (Riddy, ‘Uses of the Past’ 10). Felicity Riddy (with Field) contends that the poem is symbolic, not psychological: the reader views each character's external expression of emotion – their physical state – but cannot access the intent or psychology of these expressions (‘Uses of the Past’ 11), Orfeo's swoon, following Heurodis's abduction into the fairy world (Windeatt, ‘The Art of Swooning’; Weiss), offers another example, which Barry Windeatt characterises as a ‘swoon of recognition [that] register[s] shock at separation and loss’ (‘The Art of Swooning’ 219).…”

Section: Sir Orfeomentioning

confidence: 99%

The History of Emotions and Middle English Literature

Downes

McNamara

2016

Literature Compass

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Critics have long addressed questions of affect, feeling and emotional expression in Middle English literature, but only in recent years has their interest begun to take theoretical form under the rubric of the ‘history of emotions’. Current critical attitudes to the study of emotions in the past have been shaped substantially by the work of historians, whose focus on emotion in documentary sources has been influenced in turn by research in the fields of sociology, anthropology, psychology, linguistics and, increasingly, the cognitive sciences. How might existing methodologies situating emotions historically drive new approaches in Middle English literary studies? This article contends that existing analyses of Middle English literature relating to affective discourses might fruitfully be brought into conversation with new multidisciplinary forms of research into past emotions. We survey current critical trends in both the history of emotions and in Middle English literature. Case studies of two late Middle English literary texts, the anonymous Sir Orfeo and Geoffrey Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, show how the last fifty years of scholarship has addressed emotions in Middle English literature. We conclude by suggesting future directions that might be taken up by critics of medieval English literary texts and genres to develop further the relationship between literary studies and the history of emotions.

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Section: Sir Orfeomentioning

confidence: 99%

The History of Emotions and Middle English Literature

Downes

McNamara

2016

Literature Compass

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“…He follows, but they all mysteriously vanish into a rock. Orfeo pursues them and, as Felicity Riddy has observed, rediscovers his past chivalric identity when he enters a court, brimming with light but full of perpetual wounding, a strange combination of the Elysian Fields with the darker areas of the classical Underworld:41…”

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confidence: 99%

Perpetual bodily trauma: wounding and memory in the Middle English romances

McKinstry

2012

Med Humanities

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In the 21st century, the concept of trauma is deeply ingrained in psychological discourse despite the term's origins in literal, physical wounding and affecting experience. However, to understand the sources or causes of trauma, psychologists recognise the paramount importance of somatic evidence. The body provides corporeal systems for inputs that might trigger a later remembrance which might be auditory, visual, even tactile. The same body will continue to experience the trauma throughout its life, only alleviated, perhaps, by an appropriate therapeutic or chemical treatment. The body is therefore an important source of the trauma as an affected entity inscribed with experience, but the corporeal form also offers a way in which to identify and understand traumatic suffering itself. In the medieval period, trauma or violent experiences were similarly viewed as corporeal inscriptions which may fade but, metaphorically, remain immediately wounding. This paper explores the presentation of trauma in medieval romances, narratives strewn with injured bodies and correspondingly altered personalities and reputations, and compares this with contemporary research relating to trauma and the neurobiology of consciousness. The core issue is one of experience and expression: how an individual feels and continues to suffer trauma, and the ways in which that suffering can be communicated to those around. Through considering this issue, the paper argues for a relationship between the human experience of trauma across the centuries, and with this the combination of corporeal symbol and affect, and the dynamic interaction of a wounded body with time and its later life.

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Sir Orfeo as a Critical/Liberal/Art

Strouse

2015

Postmedieval

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The Uses of the Past in 'Sir Orfeo'

Cited by 9 publications

References 0 publications

The History of Emotions and Middle English Literature

The History of Emotions and Middle English Literature

Perpetual bodily trauma: wounding and memory in the Middle English romances

Sir Orfeo as a Critical/Liberal/Art

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