Book chapter
Wyrchipe: The Clash of Oral-Heroic and Literate-Ricardian Ideals in the Alliterative Morte Arthure
Oral Poetics in Middle English Poetry
1994
Abstract
The alliterative Morte Arthure, composed about 1402 by an anonymous poet of the Northeast Midlands, has received more attention and respect since William Matthews’s 1960 book-length study of the poem, and it is recognized as one of the great poems of the Alliterative Revival. Arthur’s heroic aggression is pitted against and ultimately succumbs to a larger impersonal, impeding force which seems to emanate from a Christianized platonic prime mover. In the absence of writing, the human memory has to be exploited in such a way that it can retain and transmit a large corpus of data without substantially changing it. This is accomplished largely through embedding information in a matrix of rhythm, alliteration, assonance, or other auditory pattern; the information then emerges as formulaic expressions within a familiar thematic setting. The relatively undifferentiated state of the cosmos means that it cannot tolerate dissent anywhere, since anything foreign or out of place threatens the integrity of the whole.
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Details
- Title
- Wyrchipe: The Clash of Oral-Heroic and Literate-Ricardian Ideals in the Alliterative Morte Arthure
- Creators
- Donna Lynne Rondolone
- Contributors
- Mark C. Amodio (Editor)
- Publication Details
- Oral Poetics in Middle English Poetry
- Publisher
- Routledge
- Edition
- 1
- Resource Type
- Book chapter
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- English and Philosophy
- Other Identifier
- 991021863417104721