The Narrative Grotesque in Medieval Scottish Poetry - (Manchester Medieval Literature and Culture) by Caitlin Flynn (Paperback)

About the Book

The narrative grotesque introduces a new framework for reading medieval texts that rupture conventional poetic boundaries and create unsettling fusions of poetic forms and narratological subjectivities.

Book Synopsis

The Narrative Grotesque examines late medieval narratology in two Older Scots poems: Gavin Douglas's The Palyce of Honour (c.1501) and William Dunbar's The Tretis of the Tua Mariit Wemen and the Wedo (c.1507). The narrative grotesque is exemplified in these poems, which fracture narratological boundaries by fusing disparate poetic forms and creating hybrid subjectivities. Consequently, these poems interrogate conventional boundaries in poetic making. The narrative grotesque is applied as a framework to elucidate these chimeric texts and to understand newly late medieval engagement with poetics and narratology.

From the Back Cover

This book introduces the 'narrative grotesque' as a valuable new critical framework for reading medieval texts. It applies this framework to uncover ground-breaking interpretations of two influential Older Scots poems: Gavin Douglas's The Palyce of Honour (c. 1501) and William Dunbar's The Tretis of the Tua Mariit Wemen and the Wedo (c. 1507).

These poems, which sit on the cusp between the medieval and early modern periods, exemplify the multivalent applications of the narrative grotesque. The book identifies moments where narratological boundaries are ruptured then refused in new and unsettling forms, a process that creates space for interrogations of poetic form and modes of expression. The narrative grotesque thus recentres critical readings on the warped edges of literary boundaries, reconsidering how medieval poets challenged generic and narratological conventions.

About the Author

Caitlin Flynn is Associate Lecturer in Medieval Literature at the University of St Andrews