Wales and the Medieval Colonial Imagination The Matters of Britain in the Twelfth Century

by Faletra, Michael A.

• ISBN13: 9781137391025
• ISBN10: 1137391022
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2014-07-24
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

Focusing on works by some of the major literary figures of the period, Michael A. Faletra argues that the legendary history of Britain that flourished in medieval chronicles and Arthurian romances traces its origins to twelfth-century Anglo-Norman colonial interest in Wales and the Welsh. Viewing the Welsh as England's original repressed Other, this book identifies and critiques the ways in which medieval narratives construe Wales as a barbaric peripheral zone requiring colonial control. By focusing on texts across a variety of genres by some of the major literary figures of the period - including Geoffrey of Monmouth, Chrétien de Troyes, Marie de France, Gerald of Wales, Walter Map, and John of Salisbury - Faletra offers innovative new readings that illuminate both the subtle power and the imaginative limitations of these matters of Britain.

Author Biography

Michael A. Faletra is Associate Professor of English and Humanities at Reed College, USA. He has translated and edited Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain, and his essays have appeared in scholarly journals that include Exemplaria, The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Medievalia et Humanistica, and The Chaucer Review.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Scrap-Heap of History
1. Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Matter of Wales
2. Fairies at the Bottom of the Garden: Courtly Britain and Its Others
3. Chrétien de Troyes, Wales, and the Matiere of Britain
4. Crooked Greeks: Hybridity, History, and Gerald of Wales
Epilogue: The Birds of Rhiannon