Abstract
This dissertation portfolio is comprised of three distinct projects: “Material Features” (a CURIOSity curated feature page), “Consuming Courtliness” (essay), and “Martyrdom and Consumption in Everyone Knows I am a Haunting” (essay). The two essays utilize critical eating and food studies to explore the uses of food and consumption to construct identity in medieval romance and contemporary medievalism. “Consuming Courtliness” considers parallel food references in two romances, Béroul’s Le Roman de Tristran and Chrétien de Troyes’ Yvain ou le Chevalier au Lion, and their construction of a courtly diet. Building on this, the essay turns to medieval depictions of cannibalism, butchery, and hunting alongside these courtly food descriptions to analyze the flaying of the giant Harpin in Yvain. These romances suggest that eating is an act that helps to construct courtly identity, and sometimes a courtly diet involves the consumption or butchery of human bodies. The second essay explores medievalism in Shivanee Ramlochan’s poetry collection Everyone Knows I am a Haunting. Using theoretical approaches outlined by Omise’eke Natasha Tinsley, Joy Ellison, and Nicholas Hoffman, I argue that Ramlochan uses the medievalism to challenge the efficacy of martyrdom, virginity, and fasting in a contemporary Trinidadian context. “Material Features,” the digital portion of this dissertation portfolio, offers an introduction to the production and use of medieval manuscripts using digitized materials from Houghton Library. Using form/genre headings to record material features in manuscripts with teaching value, I sorted the digitized materials into four CURIOSity subpages: Bindings, Pages, Content, and Decoration. Each page discusses a series of related features and provides introductory-level explanations of key vocabulary terms, links to outside resources, and relevant items from Houghton’s collections.