Nature’s farthest verge or landscapes beyond allegory and rhetorical convention? The case of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" and Petrarch’s "Ascent of Mount Ventoux"
Loading...
Date
2006
Authors
Advisor
Editor
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Adam Mickiewicz University
Title alternative
Abstract
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Petrarch’s Ascent of Mount Ventoux have both been held
up as marking pivotal stages in the development of naturalism in landscape descriptions. This
article attempts to gauge to what extent non-referentiality (both in figurative and formalistic
terms) is sustainable in representations of landscapes in these two late-medieval texts. On close
inspection, the portrayal of landscape in these two works suggests that proto-modernity has little
purchase on their topographic verisimilitude, which functions not so much as a harbinger of
proto-modernity but as a naturalistic signifier operative in conventional figural situations.
Description
Sponsor
Keywords
Citation
Studia Anglica Posnaniensia, vol. 42 (2006), pp. 463-475