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‘Thou wenest Ich be a beggere’: Borders and the Habitus in Middle English Romance

  • Matthew Bradley
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Mind the Gap: Borders, Limits and Frontiers
This chapter is in the book Mind the Gap: Borders, Limits and Frontiers

Abstract

This paper examines how borders in the landscapes of Middle English romance uncover the fragile and situational nature of their heroes’ identities and interrogates the ways in which they enforce new rules and expectations on those who dare to cross them. Utilising Pierre Bourdieu’s conception of the habitus, the paper identifies tests of ‘objective homogenizing’ in romances such as The Awntyrs off Arthur and Sir Gawain and the Carle of Carlisle, and how crossings of borders challenge their heroes’ understanding of their own chivalric identities. The paper begins by examining how the codes of chivalry which define the knights are tested by their crossings of borders into both wilderness and unfamiliar courts. Secondly, attention is paid to texts such as The Geste of Kyng Horn and Sir Orfeo where, despite attempts to mask their social status by masquerading as beggars, the titular heroes’ habitus is in fact ever-present, and strategically revealed to prove their identities. Through examining the heightened chivalric identities of Middle English romance, this paper highlights the ways in which borders permit the imposition of new rules and mores upon a space, and the influence of these conventions in shaping conceptions of personhood, status, and power.

Abstract

This paper examines how borders in the landscapes of Middle English romance uncover the fragile and situational nature of their heroes’ identities and interrogates the ways in which they enforce new rules and expectations on those who dare to cross them. Utilising Pierre Bourdieu’s conception of the habitus, the paper identifies tests of ‘objective homogenizing’ in romances such as The Awntyrs off Arthur and Sir Gawain and the Carle of Carlisle, and how crossings of borders challenge their heroes’ understanding of their own chivalric identities. The paper begins by examining how the codes of chivalry which define the knights are tested by their crossings of borders into both wilderness and unfamiliar courts. Secondly, attention is paid to texts such as The Geste of Kyng Horn and Sir Orfeo where, despite attempts to mask their social status by masquerading as beggars, the titular heroes’ habitus is in fact ever-present, and strategically revealed to prove their identities. Through examining the heightened chivalric identities of Middle English romance, this paper highlights the ways in which borders permit the imposition of new rules and mores upon a space, and the influence of these conventions in shaping conceptions of personhood, status, and power.

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Acknowledgements V
  3. Contents VII
  4. Part I
  5. Borders as Translation Spaces 1
  6. Border Narratives: Crossing Lines and Telling Tales 9
  7. Geophilosophy of the Border: Beyond Immunitarian Politics 21
  8. Borders and Neo-Nationalism: A Geophilosophical Approach 37
  9. We Fight for this Land 51
  10. Converting the Limit: Jean-Luc Nancy and the Infinite in the Act of Difference 63
  11. Liminal Places and Non-Places 77
  12. Border Brushstrokes: The Ulster Arts Club and the Post-Partition Nation 91
  13. Bordering as the Breaking Force of Border Subjects 101
  14. Frontiers of Sexual Difference: The Phantasm of Gender 115
  15. Borders and Language: Hermeneutic-Philosophical Issues 129
  16. ‘Thou wenest Ich be a beggere’: Borders and the Habitus in Middle English Romance 145
  17. Funes the Arboreous: Borderless Ecologies in Borges’s Ficciones 157
  18. Part II
  19. Borders and Barbed Wire: Cahir Healy’s Memoirs from the Argenta Prison Ship 171
  20. A Residue of Boundary Correspondence 183
  21. Two Years on an Ulster Prison Ship 189
  22. Contributors and Editors 307
  23. Index 311
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111448473-012

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Acknowledgements V
  3. Contents VII
  4. Part I
  5. Borders as Translation Spaces 1
  6. Border Narratives: Crossing Lines and Telling Tales 9
  7. Geophilosophy of the Border: Beyond Immunitarian Politics 21
  8. Borders and Neo-Nationalism: A Geophilosophical Approach 37
  9. We Fight for this Land 51
  10. Converting the Limit: Jean-Luc Nancy and the Infinite in the Act of Difference 63
  11. Liminal Places and Non-Places 77
  12. Border Brushstrokes: The Ulster Arts Club and the Post-Partition Nation 91
  13. Bordering as the Breaking Force of Border Subjects 101
  14. Frontiers of Sexual Difference: The Phantasm of Gender 115
  15. Borders and Language: Hermeneutic-Philosophical Issues 129
  16. ‘Thou wenest Ich be a beggere’: Borders and the Habitus in Middle English Romance 145
  17. Funes the Arboreous: Borderless Ecologies in Borges’s Ficciones 157
  18. Part II
  19. Borders and Barbed Wire: Cahir Healy’s Memoirs from the Argenta Prison Ship 171
  20. A Residue of Boundary Correspondence 183
  21. Two Years on an Ulster Prison Ship 189
  22. Contributors and Editors 307
  23. Index 311
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