Date of Award

8-2024

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

School

Humanities

Committee Chair

Dr. Leah Parker

Committee Chair School

Humanities

Committee Member 2

Dr. Chris Foley

Committee Member 3

Dr. Jameela Lares

Committee Member 3 School

Humanities

Committee Member 4

Dr. Nicolle Jordan

Committee Member 4 School

Humanities

Committee Member 5

Dr. Bradley Phillis

Committee Member 5 School

Humanities

Abstract

This dissertation analyzes how Welsh and non-Welsh literary texts, during and following the Norman Invasion of Wales (1067–1266), attempt to construct a unified Welsh identity, despite Wales itself being largely ununified throughout the Middle Ages and having a significant amount of internal difference. Often, these attempts to define “Welshness” incorporated environmental factors, which I analyze through a postcolonial ecocritical framework to argue that both the Welsh and Anglo-Normans participate in similar projects that attempt to define the Welsh through their relationship to the Welsh environment. While the Anglo-Normans do this as a means of “othering” the Welsh against themselves, the Welsh try to solidify their identity in response to the Normans’ colonization as a means of resistance. When the Arthurian legend emigrates to the European continent, French romances show a shift in how Wales features in the romance. Rather than questions of Welsh identity being at the forefront of Arthurian considerations, French romances marginalize Wales and the Welsh but do not entirely eliminate the earlier considerations of twelfth-century Arthuriana.

I argue that the interactions between the Welsh and Anglo-Normans were more nuanced than is often acknowledged in prior scholarship. This nuance becomes clear when considering the environmental depictions of Wales in texts that participate in the collective project of Arthurian legend. I examine Middle Welsh texts such as the First Branch of the Mabinogi and poems from the Book of Taliesin and the Black Book of Carmarthen alongside Latin sources, like Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Vita Merlini, Old French sources, such as the Lancelot-Grail Cycle and Marie de France’s Lanval, as well as the Middle English adaptation thereof, Sir Launfal. Examining the connections between these texts demonstrates how Arthuriana developed predominantly during the twelfth through thirteenth centuries, from a corpus of works invested in environmental tropes about Wales to a corpus more invested in English conquest, because of the Norman Invasion of Wales.

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