24 June 2006 – Postgraduates Present

June 24

Jill Singer (English, KCL)
The Company They Keep - a vocabulary of poverty in early Middle English

The focus is the examination of the network of words used about poverty and the poor in specific texts in early Middle English. These words are identified by context but also through links with connected words, expressed through collocation, partial synonym and antonym. It is suggested that they form the poverty category for the text from which they are gathered. The question is whether the nature of these categories can provide an insight into the contemporary frames that the words inhabit – involving linguistic and extra-linguistic content.  

Tom Hodgson-Jones (English, KCL)
Out of the Mouths of Babes: the Good Daughter and the re-knitting of social order in the Confessio Amantis

This paper uses the characters Peronelle from “The Tale of the Three Questions” and Thaise from “The Tale of Appolonius of Tyre” to discuss the relationship between social dependent and social superior in the Confessio Amantis.  The paper proposes that the possession of an independent voice is a metaphor for limited social autonomy allowed by the monarch.  These two girls show that the autonomy of the subject depends upon the wisdom of the ruler.  

Kathleen Palti (English, UCL)
Writing women’s songs: Lullabies and the Medieval English Carol

This paper will examine the production and functions of Middle English lullabies by combining manuscript study with formal analysis. Medieval lullabies represent a mother singing to (or with) her child, most commonly the Virgin Mary and the Christ child, and/or use ‘lulling’ words. I will consider the relationship between surviving lullabies and oral song traditions. Many lullabies are carols, a genre with links to secular popular song but which flourished in the fifteenth century in group performance during religious festivals. In the lullabies, oral women’s song traditions were re-made for the literate expression of communal devotional practice. This paper will demonstrate how the carol form proved to be an ideal vehicle for such exchanges.  

Andrea Oliver (English, UEA)
John, Duke of Lancaster and St. George: the King's Two Bodies

The Bedford Hours contains a portrait of John, Duke of Bedford kneeling in front of Saint George. The illustration is a unique depiction of the saint and has been interpreted as relating to Bedford's Regency in France with George variously standing for Henry V, Henry VI or England herself.  Focusing on the ideals symbolised by the Order of the Garter and using the theory of the King's Two Bodies, I seek to demonstrate that Saint George operates as the 'immortal, incorrupt and invisible' version of the Regent.'