Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Abstract

In this dissertation, I present intra-, inter-, and extra-textual felt responses to encounters with the otherworldly as described in Late Medieval texts as a lens through which to consider personal, social, and national imaginative potential surrounding contemporary issues across genres and disciplines. I argue that the use of otherworlds and otherworldly agents as both personally and rhetorically compelling analogues through which contemporary issues can be explored. I start my discussion of the felt impacts of encounters with the Arthurian otherworldly, with a particular focus on Glastonbury and Arthur’s alleged grave there, and how they transmit affects of sovereign authority. Next, I examine the affective portrayal of the fairy lover in Marie de France’s Old French Lanval and Thomas Chestre’s Middle English Sir Launfal, focusing on how the otherworldly upholds and challenges cultural norms in the Middle Ages, particularly those relating to gender and class; I demonstrate how the affects that their otherworldly natures transmit reflect shifting cultural and social anxieties while still upholding the hegemonic power structures. Then, I move to a more focused analysis of otherworldly performances of sovereign authority by considering Sir Orfeo; by closely considering the variety of otherworldly experiences and felt responses portrayed in the lai, I demonstrate that the lai models felt responses to the otherworldly that facilitate connections and negotiate sovereign authority across time and space, including the remove of death. Finally, by looking closely at Richard Coeur de Lion, I explore the interplay between felt responses to encounters with the otherworldly and how those felt responses can authorize (or diminish) sovereign authority. In placing Richard I within the idealized world of romance, the text emphasizes his supernatural or Otherworldly origins; I propose that within the literary world of romance, where these ideas are being explored, the ideal British sovereign must be, at least in part, of a kynde with forces of the otherworld himself (so that he can be sovereign over those forces). I further explore how ideas of and responses to otherworldliness as discussed in medieval romance relate to the construction of medieval British sovereignty and of a British cultural identity.

Date

3-27-2026

Committee Chair

Godden, Richard

LSU Acknowledgement

1

LSU Accessibility Acknowledgment

1

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