The hero’s fight with a dragon or giant adversary in medieval narrative [thesis]

Description

Although J.R.R. Tolkien as early as 1936 succeeded in rescuing the Beewulf monsters from disrepute, little scholarly attention has been paid since then to dragon and giant adversaries in ether medieval narratives. Yet from the twelfth to fifteenth centuries, the episode of the here's fight against a dragon or giant adversary remained a popular motif in medieval narratives, and it was particularly adaptable to the romance genre. This study is an extention of Tolkien's analysis of the monsters in Beowulf. The function of the monsters in Beowulf is reexamined in Chapter II, partly to set before the reader a poem of exceptional quality which succeeded in producing symbolically potent monstrous adversaries, and partly to explore further Tolkien's suggestions concoming the specific connotations which the monsters carry. Ultimately, this reading of Beowulf suggests some modifications an Tolkien's overall interpretation of the Northern mythological context of the mensters, specifically on the balance between pagan and Christian cencepts in the last half of the poem. To reexamine Beowulf for the symbelic meaning ef the mensters, however, is not to carry to the furthest extent the implications of Telkien's essay. For if the Beowulf monsters can be shown to be suitable adversaries for an eighth-century epic here, if Tolkien can turn Beowulf critics from scorn to admiration of monsters, the same can be done for later works. The second part ef this study, therefore, examines these mensters, primarily dragons and giants, which occur in twelfth to fifteenth-century European narratives, that is, the main body ef narrative material in which giants and dragons occur after Beowulf. The purpose in studying these later monsters is twofold: first, to define the new breed ef giant and dragon which emerges in the twelfth century; second, to define the various strategies the medieval author might rely upon to add depth of meaning to monstrous adversaries. In their adaptation to a new world view and to new narrative forms, dragons and giants underwent a considerable change in formal they became, in varying degrees, more worldly, less fearsome than early epic mensters. This change in the concept of dragons and giants and the resulting aesthetic problems it presented are explored in Chapter III. The remainder of the study is a reading of major poems illustrative of three strategies the medieval poet devised to give added depth of meaning to the episode of the hero's fight against a dragon or giant adversary. The author could adopt a "matter-of-fact attitude" toward the monstrous adversary and create meaning through structural positioning (illustratod in Chapter IV by Chretien de Troyes' Erec et Enide and Yvain). The author could minimize the monstrous qualities to the point of humanizing the giant and, surprisingly, of the dragon as well; to accomplish this the author most often combined his depiction of the monsters with the enchantment or shapeshifting motif, so that the monster is a man turned monster and therefore capable of being characterized extensively (illustrated in Chapter V by the Siegfried stories and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight). Finally, the author could treat dragons and giants comically (illustrated in the final chapter by Gottfried von Strassburg's Tristan and the chanson do geste Aliscans).