Making Waves Lecture Series: Professor Rhiannon Purdie The Big Bang Theory of Medieval Scots Literature
As part of the Making Waves Lecture Series, the Development team is hosting the next event with Professor Rhiannon Purdie from the School of English.
Rhiannon ‘s main research interests are in Older Scots literature, later Middle English literature, medieval romance and textual editing. She has published books and articles on Older Scots literature, medieval romance and Chaucer, as well as acting as Editorial Secretary for the Scottish Text Society and Chair of the Scottish Medievalists.
Older Scots and Middle English were the parallel Old English-derived vernaculars of medieval Scotland and England. Proximity and mutual intelligibility meant that there was constant literary interchange between them, so we might expect them to have similar literary histories, but they do not. After the Norman Conquest, literature in English had sputtered back to life by the 13th century so that, by the latter end of the 14th century, Chaucer could draw upon a broad tradition of literature in Middle English. But in Older Scots, nothing at all survives until the 1370s when John Barbour produced, without warning or explanation for the bemused modern literary historian, a vast chivalric biography of the national hero Robert the Bruce, soon to be followed by equally vast works in other genres.
From no survivals one year to nearly 14,000 lines of finely-crafted epic verse the next, can this be right?
This talk will explore aspects of the apparent ‘Big Bang' origins of literature in Scots.
The event will take place at the Royal Over-Seas League, 6 Park Place, St James's, London SW1A 1LR.