Abstract
Julie Nelson Couch explores the function of the poem’s child heroes and their relation to the genre of Middle English romance. What the author terms the figural agency of the child protagonists opens a rhetorical space that allows an expected romance experience of hero veneration and a spiritual experience of God’s radical mercy. The child protagonists serve both as agents who actively plight troth and adhere to their oath despite all obstacles and as figures who embody Christological suffering. Ultimately, the chapter demonstrates that the reader of Amis and Amiloun experiences a romance discourse that opposes adult and child, stringent legalism and excessive mercy, as inflected through the figural and agential use of childhood.
I would like to thank Kimberly K. Bell for her reading of a late draft of this chapter; as always her feedback proved invaluable, lending clarity of thought and word.
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Notes
- 1.
All quotes from the poem are taken from Foster’s edition and line numbers will be given parenthetically in the essay.
- 2.
Lines 20–1. The exception is Nicole Clifton who recognizes the critical role of childhood in the Middle English version and contrasts its unique emphasis on children to the Old French and Anglo-Norman versions.
- 3.
Heng aptly labels romance “a species of pure cannibalism,” 9.
- 4.
On the role of “divine favour” in Amis and Amiloun, see Djordjevic.
- 5.
See also Clifton, 50–1; and Pugh, 105–6.
- 6.
Even Amis’ sacrifice of his two sons is an act kept secret, unlike its revelation in a public confession in the Old French version. Clifton, 45.
- 7.
See “(Forma confitendi)” [Form of Confession] (Horstmann, 340) and wil(le) n., 5b.(f), Medieval English Dictionary.
- 8.
In kind, Amis “was so ful of care” for three lines that he almost swoons and then begs the duke for leave to go with Amiloun (256–64).
- 9.
ferly, adv., 3; adj. and noun, 3a and B, OED.
- 10.
See Karras on marriage as entry into adulthood, 13.
- 11.
In the early Radulphus version, the leprous Amiloun simply knocks on Amis’ door as a leper and is immediately welcomed, and in the Old French version, Amis instantly recognizes his friend by the goblet (Leach).
- 12.
In medieval society, lepers were incriminated: segregated by strict legislation and prohibited to marry and interact with others (Souvay and Donovan).
- 13.
On the medieval perception that a child’s blood was a real cure for leprosy, see Crane, 124.
- 14.
See also Crane, 127.
- 15.
See Yoonfor a critical survey and an alternative reading of leprosy as a “divine blessing” (33).
- 16.
See also Eckert, 291.
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Couch, J.N. (2019). Figural Agency: Reading the Child in Amis and Amiloun. In: Miller, N.J., Purkiss, D. (eds) Literary Cultures and Medieval and Early Modern Childhoods. Literary Cultures and Childhoods. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14211-7_10
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