![]() ![]() ![]() James, for instance, her England is no green and pleasant land. Though Ellis Peters’s novels descend from Agatha Christie rather than darker detection in the manner of P.D. But though she shuns the obvious Gothic path, Peters chooses to create a world which is far from peaceful. Whereas for instance Eco’s much more formidable Name of the Rose builds a more abstract, intellectual labyrinth, and taps into the lurid tradition of Gothic references to the Inquisition from Melmoth to the Monk, Ellis Peters’s medieval England is essentially down to earth and strays from dark mazes. Though the point is sometimes stretched (there are many more fifty-year-old or sixty-year-old characters in Peters’s books than they would have been at the time), Peters’s take on medevialism is refreshingly simple.ģ The Cadfael Chronicles also depart from the tradition of medieval Gothic. Time and distances are measured according to a different scale, but the reader must feel that the way of life is normal, not quaint or picturesque. Similarly, Ellis Peters spices her modern English with a few archaisms, unusual names like Radulfus or Elave, or odd words like “hospitaller” (HA 2), “infirmarer”(VITI 2), but her medieval world is meant to feel familiar. It takes a number of books for the reader to become acquainted with the topography of Shrewsbury Abbey and its surroundings. Peters opts for the metonymic recreation of the texture of the times, barely describing clothes (the odd pin of a coat which may be used to pierce, for instance) or settings. This is a world without technology, yet which is not so very distant from ours. ![]() ![]() She wishes to make her reader feel at home in the world of the 1130’s or 40’s. Ellis Peters’s recreation is far less vivid, precisely because she wishes to depart from this somewhat glamorous realm of imaginary medievalism. Tapestries, Pre-Raphaelite paintings, Romantic or Victorian poetry, all drew inspiration from Malory’s Morte d’Arthur, among other texts, to celebrate a pristine, vanished past of entwined motifs and garlands of great deeds and declarations of love. 1) The Historical FrameĢ Victorian medievalism recreated the Middle Ages as a legendary period of feats and courtly love. Though meant for entertainment, the playful transposition creates an interesting historical background, while reinventing the detective as healer and monk. From 1977 to 1994, Ellis Peters (whose real name was Edith Pargeter) chose to transpose detective fiction (a genre which was born in the nineteenth century with writers like Wilkie Collins and Conan Doyle), back in the Middle Ages. Thus the reader may have the pleasure of holding a book which is somewhat reminiscent of a beautifully illuminated manuscript once copied by monks. The Warner Futura edition of the books uses Gothic characters on the cover, a gold band for the author’s name, and an illuminated letter to open Cadfael’s name, a simplified version of which opens each chapter the Futura edition also opts for the spelling “mediaeval”. 1 Ellis Peters’s Cadfael Chronicles tap into the exotic appeal of medievalism. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |