The Cross-Cultural Dragon in Medieval Arthurian Literature
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Birmingham
Department Name: Department of English Literature
Abstract
My thesis investigates the far-reaching literary and cultural influences, drawn from European and Arabic sources, which informed the development of the dragon as a cultural symbol in English Arthurian literature produced between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries. It traces literary-cultural transmission within and across medieval and early modern Arthurian works, considering wider political and sociocultural settings in order to interrogate insular understandings of literary motifs. My work specifically engages with the entry of the dragon to the Galfridian tradition as an astrological and astronomical allusion, and its subsequent reimagining as a romance motif (divorced from this earlier intellectual context). This original contribution is framed in terms of Geraldine Heng's idea of 'cultural fantasy,' which I apply to the dragon motif.
In her Empire of Magic, a work which functions as a critical framework throughout my thesis, Heng locates the beginning of romance in Geoffrey of Monmouth's historical chronicle, the History of the Kings of Britain, a focal text within my thesis which marks the beginning of the Arthurian tradition. My thesis redefines her argument, nuancing Heng's idea of cultural fantasy through the dragon motif to include the integration and movement of classical and Arabic scientific materials across the English Arthurian canon. This demonstrates that, although Geoffrey's chronicle and his Prophecies of Merlin may be the beginning of romance, as Heng suggests, Geoffrey's works also show us the incorporation of Arabic astronomical and astrological ideas within its dragon prophecies, highlighting lines of transmission between the medieval Latinate West and the Iberian Peninsula. This is a debt which can no longer be overlooked within each of Geoffrey's works.
Thus, my thesis's original contribution to knowledge is threefold: my research's in-depth investigation into the analogous uses of Arabic astronomy expressed through Geoffrey's original dragon motif, the subsequent invisibility or erasure of this within the later English uses of the dragon motif (after Geoffrey, up until Thomas Malory), and my redefining of the relationship between scientific culture and cultural fantasy, which describes an intellectual history as much as a cultural one.
The first year of this project was supported by a grant from The Vinaver Trust, awarded by the International Arthurian Society. The subsequent years have been funded by the AHRC Midlands4Cities Doctoral Training Partnership. Outside of my research project, I have taught Literature modules to both undergraduates and postgraduates, and have given papers at various conferences, including the Society for Renaissance Studies (SRS), the Oxford Medieval Graduate Conference, the International Arthurian Society, British Branch Conference, and the EMREM Annual Symposium. I have also held a manuscript workshop at the Cadbury Research Library (CRL) and was invited to provide Arthurian context and expertise on the newly released game, Pendragon, during a Livestream session with VALUE Foundation.
In terms of publications, I have written blogs on medieval, apocalyptic works, such as Lambert's twelfth-century encyclopaedia, the Liber Floridus, as well as Joachim of Fiore's prophetic rendition of the seven-headed dragon of Revelation, for the online collaborative project MEMOs, which focuses on medieval and early modern interactions between England and the Islamic worlds. I am currently a member of the International Arthurian Society, British Branch, as well as Birmingham Stories, a charity organisation in partnership with the National Literacy Trust. My main research interests include: Arthurian motifs; cross-cultural spaces; literary-cultural transmission; supernatural monsters; medieval astronomy and astrology; insular/ national identities; crusading and apocalyptic literatures.
In her Empire of Magic, a work which functions as a critical framework throughout my thesis, Heng locates the beginning of romance in Geoffrey of Monmouth's historical chronicle, the History of the Kings of Britain, a focal text within my thesis which marks the beginning of the Arthurian tradition. My thesis redefines her argument, nuancing Heng's idea of cultural fantasy through the dragon motif to include the integration and movement of classical and Arabic scientific materials across the English Arthurian canon. This demonstrates that, although Geoffrey's chronicle and his Prophecies of Merlin may be the beginning of romance, as Heng suggests, Geoffrey's works also show us the incorporation of Arabic astronomical and astrological ideas within its dragon prophecies, highlighting lines of transmission between the medieval Latinate West and the Iberian Peninsula. This is a debt which can no longer be overlooked within each of Geoffrey's works.
Thus, my thesis's original contribution to knowledge is threefold: my research's in-depth investigation into the analogous uses of Arabic astronomy expressed through Geoffrey's original dragon motif, the subsequent invisibility or erasure of this within the later English uses of the dragon motif (after Geoffrey, up until Thomas Malory), and my redefining of the relationship between scientific culture and cultural fantasy, which describes an intellectual history as much as a cultural one.
The first year of this project was supported by a grant from The Vinaver Trust, awarded by the International Arthurian Society. The subsequent years have been funded by the AHRC Midlands4Cities Doctoral Training Partnership. Outside of my research project, I have taught Literature modules to both undergraduates and postgraduates, and have given papers at various conferences, including the Society for Renaissance Studies (SRS), the Oxford Medieval Graduate Conference, the International Arthurian Society, British Branch Conference, and the EMREM Annual Symposium. I have also held a manuscript workshop at the Cadbury Research Library (CRL) and was invited to provide Arthurian context and expertise on the newly released game, Pendragon, during a Livestream session with VALUE Foundation.
In terms of publications, I have written blogs on medieval, apocalyptic works, such as Lambert's twelfth-century encyclopaedia, the Liber Floridus, as well as Joachim of Fiore's prophetic rendition of the seven-headed dragon of Revelation, for the online collaborative project MEMOs, which focuses on medieval and early modern interactions between England and the Islamic worlds. I am currently a member of the International Arthurian Society, British Branch, as well as Birmingham Stories, a charity organisation in partnership with the National Literacy Trust. My main research interests include: Arthurian motifs; cross-cultural spaces; literary-cultural transmission; supernatural monsters; medieval astronomy and astrology; insular/ national identities; crusading and apocalyptic literatures.