Haunted Landscapes

This essay considers the ways in which the landscape that surrounds the characters of Perceforest works to shape their identities. It brings together a variety of moments at which the characters’ inanimate surroundings speak to them of themselves or of someone closely associated with them, by means...

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Veröffentlicht in:Cahiers de recherches médiévales et humanistes 2011, p.185-199
1. Verfasser: Heidenreich Findley, Brooke
Format: Artikel
Sprache:eng
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Zusammenfassung:This essay considers the ways in which the landscape that surrounds the characters of Perceforest works to shape their identities. It brings together a variety of moments at which the characters’ inanimate surroundings speak to them of themselves or of someone closely associated with them, by means of a monument or meaningful object set in a significant place. The incongruity of coming upon a fixed and inanimate tableau that conveys a message about human identity renders these encounters “haunting”: the lack of a human presence is felt as jarring. Such moments teach us not only how identity is molded and transformed – a significant question for a romance in which anonymity, name-change and the loss of selfhood are recurring themes – but how the romance characters experience the space through which they move as an alienating and aggressive force, one that controls them even as they seek to dominate it.
ISSN:2115-6360
2273-0893