Event Details

Dr Clare Egan and Dr Emma Nuding (Lancaster) present research papers on location, mobility and the environment in literature of the medieval period.

Dr Clare Egan (Lancaster): Verticality and Brittle Fluidity in Late Medieval Literary Environments

Comparing Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Second Shepherds' Play from the Towneley manuscript, this paper explores the situational perspectives and sometimes seemingly paradoxical states of matter observed by travellers through the landscape in both texts. From vertical views that collapse differences of time and space to descriptions of materiality, especially of water, that emphasise the simultaneously hard or brittle and fluid or writhing, the paper will argue that there is an environmental consciousness in these texts, which might suggest ways for rethinking humanity's relationship to the non-human world. The paper will also consider the significance of performance, movement and stasis by drawing parallels between an experience of reading Gawain 'on location' and understanding The Second Shepherds' Play as a piece of early drama.

Dr Emma Nuding (Lancaster): Pilgrimage and ‘þa leofne sið’ (‘that dear journey’) in the Old English Guthlac A

Despite its lack of topographical texture, Guthlac A is a text deeply attuned to spatial metaphors and their ability to communicate spiritual truths. An Old English poem focused on the life of an eighth-century fenland hermit, Guthlac A appears to set up an opposition between heavenly stasis and demonic motion. This is established in the crux of the poem’s action with Guthlac’s tormenting demons swirling fitfully around his solid beorg or mound, his little piece of stability in the shifting levels of the fens. However, the many motifs of pilgrimage in the poem (especially Guthlac’s identification as a ‘man in motion’, a wergenga) ultimately disrupt this opposition. These pilgrimage motifs suggest that correctly-orientated journeys are a necessary prelude to heavenly stasis, rather than being antithetical to it. As the audience of the poem, we are encouraged to see that, under certain conditions, worldly movement can become heavenly: when rather than demonic whirling, it becomes a pilgrimage orientated on the New Jerusalem, and so becomes ‘that dear journey’, or þa leone sið.