Living Death in Medieval French and English Literature Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature Series

Medieval literature contains many figures caught at the interface between life and death - the dead return to place demands on the living, while the living foresee, organize or desire their own deaths. Jane Gilbert's original study examines the ways in which certain medieval literary texts, both English and French, use these 'living dead' to think about existential, ethical and political issues. In doing so, she shows powerful connections between works otherwise seen as quite disparate, including Chaucer's Book of the Duchess and Legend of Good Women, the Chanson de Roland and the poems of Francois Villon. Written for researchers and advanced students of medieval French and English literature, this book provides original, provocative interpretations of canonical medieval texts in the light of influential modern theories, especially Lacanian psychoanalysis, presented in an accessible and lively way.

Introduction: living death; 1. Roland and the second death; 2. The knight as thing: courtly love in the non-cyclic prose Lancelot; 3. The Ubi Sunt? Topos in Middle French: sad stories of the death of kings; 4. Ceci n'est pas une marguerite: anamorphosis in Pearl; 5. Becoming woman in Chaucer: on ne naît pas femme, on le devient en mourant; Conclusion: living dead or dead-in-life?

Jane Gilbert is Senior Lecturer in French at University College London.