March 12: "Weeping Like a Beaten Child: Figurative Language in Chaucer and Mallory"

University of Melbourne professor Stephanie Trigg explores the way in which one curious metaphor connects the works of two of early English literature's most central works, inquiring into the relationship between figurative language, gesture, and the representation of emotion: "Weeping Like a Beaten Child: Figurative Language in Chaucer and Malory."

Tuesday, March 12, 2013 | 6:00 - 8:00 pm
New York University Medieval & Rennaisance Center
19 Univeristy Place, Room 222

In two dramatically different emotional contexts, Chaucer and Malory describe grown men (Absalom and Lancelot) as weeping like children who has been beaten. Both examples draw on what seems to be a kind of proverbial simile, though the two narrative and generic contexts produce very different effects on the reader: cosmic laughter in "The Miller's Tale;" tragic pity in Le Morte d'Arthur. Trigg's talk will focus on this proverbial or 'conventional' simile, asking how, in medieval literature, do literary figures like similes shape the expression of emotion?

This event is free and open to the public. For more information, call 212-998-8698 or email mar.center@nyu.edu. Learn more at MARC online »