The Feminine Other: Monsters and Magic in Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Monsters are perceived as humanity’s enemy that should be eradicated. However, based on Jeffrey Cohen’s Monster Theory (1997), monsters play an important role in understanding humanity’s fears and anxieties. Monstrosity hinges upon the binary opposition of the Self and the Other, in which the Other is seen as a threat to the Self. With this in mind, this article addresses the female monsters of two medieval texts: Beowulf and Sir Gawain and The Green Knight. This paper aims to examine the female monsters, Grendel’s mother and Morgan the Fay, as a cultural reference to unravel the patriarchal anxieties of the time. Grendel’s mother represents a threat to the homosocial hierarchal bonds of Medieval society. Meanwhile, Morgan the Fay signifies danger to knighthood, chivalry, and courtly romance. At the same time, this paper also aims to continue the critical analysis and literature of the female characters in both texts with a heavy emphasis on their Otherness.

IIIMiddle English

This chapter has thirteen sections: 1. Early Middle English; 2. Theory; 3. Manuscript and Technical Studies; 4. Religious Prose and Verse; 5. Secular Prose; 6. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Patience and Cleanness; 7. Piers Plowman; 8. Gower; 9. Older Scots; 10. Drama; 11. Secular Verse; 12. Romance: Metrical, Alliterative, Prose. 13. Hoccleve and Lydgate. Section 1 is by Ayoush Lazikani; section 2 is by Andrew Finn; section 3 is by J.D. Sargan; section 4 is by Natalie Calder; section 5 is by Johannes Wolf; section 6 is by Rafael J. Pascual; section 7 is by Joel Grossman; section 8 is by Laurie Atkinson; section 9 is by Kate Ash-Irisarri; section 10 is by Daisy Black and Sarah Brazil; sections 11 and 12 are by Darragh Greene, with contributions by Johannes Woolf on Malory; 13 is by Rebecca Menmuir.

The functions of the theme of memory in the novel “The Buried Giant” by Kazuo Ishiguro

This article reviews the role of the theme of memory in the novel “The Buried Giant” by Kazuo Ishiguro. The motives of regeneration and loss of memory are relevant in modern literature as a whole and in works of K. Ishiguro in particular. The research is based on the methods of motivic and culturological analysis. In the novel “The Buried Giant”, the theme of memory has a structural meaning. It manifests through the spatial-temporal arrangement of the text, system of characters, symbolism of the novel, and organizes the core antithesis of the work – cultural memory and “mist” (embodiment of oblivion), which creates with the plotline and images of the characters. In the text of the novel, the people lose memory; the limits between the “native” and “alien”, the past and the future are blurred. The theme of memory is the source of unravelling of the plot. The two storylines are distinguished: external (the path of the characters seeking their son) and internal (regeneration of memory). The theme of memory organizes the system of characters: the protagonists Axl and Beatrice reconstruct the events preceding the beginning of the novel and accept them. Sir Gawain and Wistan remember the past, but they have a different attitude towards collective memory: the first one wants to prolong the oblivion, while the other one wants to restore the people's memories. The research demonstrates the role of the theme of memory within the structure of K. Ishiguro's novel “The Buried Giant”, which reveals the author's idea: nothing can be forgotten completely.