The Cross-Cultural Dragon in Medieval Arthurian Literature

我的论文考察了来自欧洲和阿拉伯的深远的文学和文化影响，这些影响推动了龙作为12世纪至16世纪英国亚瑟王文学中的一种文化象征的发展。它追踪中世纪和早期现代亚瑟王作品中和之间的文学文化传播，考虑更广泛的政治和社会文化背景，以询问对文学母题的狭隘理解。我的作品特别涉及到龙作为占星术和天文典故进入加尔弗里德传统，以及随后作为浪漫主题的重新想象(脱离了早期的智力背景)。这篇原创作品是按照Geraldine Heng的“文化幻想”理念设计的，我把这一理念应用到龙的主题上。在她的作品《魔术帝国》中，亨特在蒙茅斯的历史编年史《不列颠国王史》中找到了浪漫的开始，这是我论文中的一个焦点文本，标志着亚瑟王传统的开始。我的论文重新定义了她的论点，通过龙的主题细微地对比了亨氏对文化幻想的想法，包括古典和阿拉伯科学材料在英国亚瑟王正典中的融合和移动。这表明，尽管杰弗里的编年史和他的梅林预言可能是浪漫的开始，正如亨氏所建议的那样，杰弗里的作品也向我们展示了阿拉伯天文和占星学思想在龙的预言中的结合，突出了中世纪拉丁西部和伊比利亚半岛之间的传播线。在杰弗里的每一部作品中，这都是一笔不能再被忽视的债务。因此，我的论文最初对知识的贡献有三个方面：我的研究深入调查了通过杰弗里最初的龙主题表达的阿拉伯天文学的类似用法，随后在后来的英语中对龙主题的使用(在杰弗里之后，直到托马斯·马洛里)中对这一点的隐形或抹杀，以及我对科学文化和文化幻想之间关系的重新定义，这既描述了一部思想史，也描述了一部文化史。这个项目的第一年得到了国际亚瑟王协会授予的Vinaver信托基金的赠款支持。随后的几年由AHRC Midlands4Cities博士培训伙伴关系提供资金。在我的研究项目之外，我给本科生和研究生讲授文学模块，并在各种会议上发表论文，包括文艺复兴研究学会(SRS)、牛津中世纪研究生会议、国际亚瑟王学会、英国分会会议和EMREM年度研讨会。我还在吉百利研究图书馆(CRL)举办了一个手稿研讨会，并应邀在与Value Foundation的Livestream会议期间提供关于新发布的游戏Pendragon的亚瑟王背景和专业知识。在出版物方面，我为在线合作项目备忘录撰写了关于中世纪和世界末日作品的博客，例如兰伯特12世纪的百科全书《利伯弗洛里德斯》，以及菲奥雷的先知表演《启示录》的约阿希姆，该项目专注于中世纪和早期现代英格兰和伊斯兰世界之间的互动。我目前是国际亚瑟王协会英国分会以及伯明翰故事协会的成员，伯明翰故事是一个与国家扫盲信托基金合作的慈善组织。我的主要研究兴趣包括：亚瑟王题材；跨文化空间；文学-文化传播；超自然怪兽；中世纪天文学和占星术；岛屿/国家认同；十字军东征和世界末日文学。

My thesis investigates the far-reaching literary and cultural influences, drawn from European and Arabic sources, which informed the development of the dragon as a cultural symbol in English Arthurian literature produced between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries. It traces literary-cultural transmission within and across medieval and early modern Arthurian works, considering wider political and sociocultural settings in order to interrogate insular understandings of literary motifs. My work specifically engages with the entry of the dragon to the Galfridian tradition as an astrological and astronomical allusion, and its subsequent reimagining as a romance motif (divorced from this earlier intellectual context). This original contribution is framed in terms of Geraldine Heng's idea of 'cultural fantasy,' which I apply to the dragon motif. In her Empire of Magic, a work which functions as a critical framework throughout my thesis, Heng locates the beginning of romance in Geoffrey of Monmouth's historical chronicle, the History of the Kings of Britain, a focal text within my thesis which marks the beginning of the Arthurian tradition. My thesis redefines her argument, nuancing Heng's idea of cultural fantasy through the dragon motif to include the integration and movement of classical and Arabic scientific materials across the English Arthurian canon. This demonstrates that, although Geoffrey's chronicle and his Prophecies of Merlin may be the beginning of romance, as Heng suggests, Geoffrey's works also show us the incorporation of Arabic astronomical and astrological ideas within its dragon prophecies, highlighting lines of transmission between the medieval Latinate West and the Iberian Peninsula. This is a debt which can no longer be overlooked within each of Geoffrey's works. Thus, my thesis's original contribution to knowledge is threefold: my research's in-depth investigation into the analogous uses of Arabic astronomy expressed through Geoffrey's original dragon motif, the subsequent invisibility or erasure of this within the later English uses of the dragon motif (after Geoffrey, up until Thomas Malory), and my redefining of the relationship between scientific culture and cultural fantasy, which describes an intellectual history as much as a cultural one. The first year of this project was supported by a grant from The Vinaver Trust, awarded by the International Arthurian Society. The subsequent years have been funded by the AHRC Midlands4Cities Doctoral Training Partnership. Outside of my research project, I have taught Literature modules to both undergraduates and postgraduates, and have given papers at various conferences, including the Society for Renaissance Studies (SRS), the Oxford Medieval Graduate Conference, the International Arthurian Society, British Branch Conference, and the EMREM Annual Symposium. I have also held a manuscript workshop at the Cadbury Research Library (CRL) and was invited to provide Arthurian context and expertise on the newly released game, Pendragon, during a Livestream session with VALUE Foundation. In terms of publications, I have written blogs on medieval, apocalyptic works, such as Lambert's twelfth-century encyclopaedia, the Liber Floridus, as well as Joachim of Fiore's prophetic rendition of the seven-headed dragon of Revelation, for the online collaborative project MEMOs, which focuses on medieval and early modern interactions between England and the Islamic worlds. I am currently a member of the International Arthurian Society, British Branch, as well as Birmingham Stories, a charity organisation in partnership with the National Literacy Trust. My main research interests include: Arthurian motifs; cross-cultural spaces; literary-cultural transmission; supernatural monsters; medieval astronomy and astrology; insular/ national identities; crusading and apocalyptic literatures.