Medieval Romance

To call the romance the quintessential genre of the Middle Ages would not, be unreasonable.  Many of the images still associated with medievalism to this day seem to spring from romance: the knight in shining armor, the well-defended castle, the wispy but beautiful maiden, the quest, King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.  For its original audience, the romance was just as emblematic, as the genre composed some of the most popular reading material of the age, both in terms of audience and in terms of output.  It is therefore perhaps unsurprising that the term “romance” both wants desperately for precise definition and eludes it.  The concept is so important and so widely discussed that it is, of course, required that everyone know what exactly is being talked about.  However, because so many diverse texts can be called “romance,” a precise and detailed definition that manages both to describe the genre across hundreds of years, a wide array of different forms and manners of composition, and many countries and to satisfy everyone who has sunk their teeth into the subject matter remains elusive.  Within this one undergraduate course on medieval literature, we have considered elements of romance in lais, in lyrics, in a dream vision, and in alliterative verse, proving that the romance can wear many different faces.

Following its birth in France, the medieval romance mutated across time and culture, so that it is possible to speak of the French romance, the English romance, the Italian romance, the German romance, and so on as interrelated but distinguishable from one another.  Within these categories, further distinctions can be made, such as that between romances for a wide audience which might have been performed publically, and those that were intended for an allegedly more sophisticated, literate, urban audience (Psaki 204).  The result is that definitions can be so broad as to be unhelpful, but increased specificity tends to overlook an important element present across works, or to exclude a text that clearly belongs with romance.  These problems are exacerbated by the vagueness of the word ‘romance’ in when it was written; a text in Middle English announcing itself as a romance may be speaking to its literary characteristics, or to its source in a Romance language (336).  For latter day scholars, the abundance is both tantalizing and tricky, which explains why, in addition to close readings of the many texts, scholarly discourse about romance seems to be dominated by attempts to define and describe romance in all of its particulars, such that Yin Liu begins her argument by telling the reader: “since romance has proven itself inexhaustibly and infinitely expandable, I make no apologies for taking yet another run at the meaning of ‘Middle English romance’ as a generic term” (335).  (And she speaks only of the Middle English romance, without touching upon any of the other national traditions going on at the time.) 

Liu does, however, provide a useful framework for discussing Middle English romance (and, most likely, any genre as diverse as this one): “not to be definitive but descriptive” (335).  A definitive and entirely satisfying answer is likely to remain elusive, but this does not mean that “romance” is an arbitrary and meaningless category.  Rather, the genre might be compared to a staple foodstuff like bread.  Bread comes in myriad varieties – it may be soft, pillowy, crusty, or flaky; made of wheat, barley, or rye; filled with nuts, raisins, cheeses, and any other number of things that people dream up because it sounds good to eat.  But at its core, bread is comprised of flour, water, and yeast, and even the most innovative of loaves still maintains its breadness.  Medieval romance is much the same, variable, and yet recognizable.  The purpose of this paper is to attempt to describe the flour, water, and yeast of the genre, with a sprinkling of the flaky crusts and the raisins. 

Of these basic features, romance’s most significant is that of values.  The genre has been discussed in the context of value since early scholarship on the subject, when even those who sat down to study the stuff questioned whether or not most medieval romance had any literary value.  The answer, broadly speaking, was “no, not really, but let’s study it anyway.”  In one of the earliest works of comprehensive criticism, A.B. Taylor writes that, “The people of the Middle Ages revered historical truth, but were very easily duped… like uneducated people of today were easily satisfied” (122), indicative of a patronizing attitude towards the men and women who consumed these works.  They were foolish and uneducated – if they’d known better, they would have been reading higher quality stuff.  This attitude can also be found in Derek Pearsall’s seminal work, “The Development of Middle English Romance,” which calls examples of the genre “hack work” (## get article from ILLiad again), and dismisses romance generally as low quality.  From a modern aesthetic, many examples seem to be found lacking.  This aesthetic value judgment was not shared by the medieval romance’s original readers, who gobbled it up in all its diverse forms.  Indeed, for these readers, the aesthetic value judgment that predominates the early scholarship on the genre may not have been simply wrong, but quite beside the point.

For medieval readers, romance provided a different kind of value: that of examining their own values systems.  As a genre, the romance is often characterized as a conservative one.  Most examples uphold a system of beliefs and codify practices.  Even when a text, such as Marie de France’s “Lanval,” seems to turn some medieval values on their head, these readings vibrate within the contained system of the conservative world of knights and courtly behavior, not openly and deliberately decrying the system as wrong.  Roberta L. Krueger describes how, “[n]ovel male and female patrons were evidently eager to listen to stories in which their own ideals and anxieties were reflected” (3) in the texts they commissioned.  If medieval readership felt anxiety about the potential of female power to disrupt the patriarchal status quo, a piece like “Lanval” allows for safe space to explore this fear, where all can ultimately be righted in the world. 

I have not had as much time as I would have liked to dedicate to developing this.  (Also, I find that I have to start at the beginning of my work and work to the end and then edit, hence this not containing more “meaty” sections of my paper.)  However, after this weekend, I am going to have a lot more time to dedicate to this.  I am fairly happy with the shape that it’s taking thus far, but frankly I’m not sure if my bread metaphor is silly or not, though I included it because I keep thinking about it as I read these things.  Right now, I feel like I am most struggling with imagining how I am going to incorporate the point of romance’s popularity – it doesn’t feel like a “feature” of the genre as such, but seems important to me.  I might try to scatter it in throughout, I’m not sure.  (You might note that I am missing a page number for a quote... The one I forgot to record that I knew I wanted to use was, of course, in the article that disappeared from ILLiad and I didn't realize it.  But I have requested it again.)

Works Cited

Krueger, Roberta L., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Romance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Web.

Liu, Yin. “Middle English Romance as Prototype Genre.” The Chaucer Review 40.4 (2006): 335-353. Web.

Pearsall, Derek. “The Development of Middle English Romance.” Mediaeval Studies 27 (1965): 91-116. Web.

Psaki, F. Regina. “Chivalry and Medieval Italian Romance.” Krueger 203-217. Web.

Taylor, A.B. An Introduction to Medieval Romance. 1930. New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc, 1969. Print.