Enfance(s) as a Central Topic in King Horn and Havelok the Dane, the Romances of Exile and Return
Keywords:
English literature, Middle Ages, romance, adventure story, King Horn, Havelok the Dane, exile, returnAbstract
This article focuses on two thirteenth-century Middle English romances, King Horn and Havelok the Dane, classified in modern English scholarship as the romances of exile and return. They concentrate on the orphaned and dispossessed noble heroes whose eligibility for the membership in the -medieval ruling élite is demonstrated in a series of trials which they successfully undergo in order to regain their lost social position. The eponymous heroes of both romances, royal princes and heirs, experience the same fate and this article discusses three narrative elements in King Horn and Havelok the Dane which constitute the topic of enfance(s) in its broadest sense, childhood and adolescence: the hero’s journey into exile, his education and upbringing, and his marriage to a high-born woman which mark the end of his childhood and adolescent period and the beginning of his adulthood. The purpose of this article is to examine literary conventions on which relied the writers of both romances while addressing the topics mentioned above, which, in turn, are indebted to broader medieval traditions for the treatment of these topics. At the same time, however, the article discusses both romances from a mythical and historical perspective and studies the variations existing within conventional narrative patterns, which made room for a certain amount of artistic freedom in medieval romances in general. King Horn and Havelok the Dane also confirm that the writers of medieval romance did have options as to the shaping of their protagonists’ character, underlining either their eagerness or reluctance to claim their birthright, being either active or passive suitors, being firmly rooted in a courtly environment or being in touch with all social classes, but the historical and ideological basis remains the same: the hero in a romance of exile and return must show endurance and fortitude in misfortune and undergo a tough apprenticeship period before he is eventually able to reassert his birthrights and re-establish order and law in his kingdom, demonstrating thus his worthiness to be a member of the ruling élite.References
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