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This study attempts to analyze diverse aspects of the corporeality of cultural others in Middle English oriental romances. The theoretical introduction situates the romances in the context of anthropology of the body. The analysis includes a psychoanalytical perspective on an oriental female body in Chaucer's Squire's tale and Sir Ferumbras, anthropophagy in Richard le Coer de Lyon, slavery and hybridity in Floris and Blancheflour, Roberto Esposito's theory of immunization and the question of female grotesque in the English Charlemagne romances, King Horn and the othering of the same, and the influence of monstrous races on a Westerner in the Middle English Alexander romances. The overall perspective is not entirely a negative one. The Wonders of the East tradition counterbalances the negative vision to some extent, since it predates Romantic infatuation with the Orient.
List of contents
Contents: Ethnic difference and body marvellous: the case of Chaucer's Squire's tale and Sir Ferumbras - Community, Richard le Coer de Lyon, and chivalric anthropophagy - Bodies enslaved in Aucassin et Nicolete and Floris and Blancheflour - Black giantesses as communal flesh in the Firumbras romances - Genealogy and desire in King Horn - Transformation and regeneration in Kyng Alisaunder and The wars of Alexander.
About the author
Anna Czarnowus is a lecturer in English literature at the University of Silesia, Katowice (Poland). She teaches in the applied languages French and English programme at the Institute of Romanic Languages and Translation Studies. She has published on Chaucer and Middle English literature. Her doctoral thesis Inscription on the body: monstrous children in Middle English literature was published in 2009.
