‘Alas, i go with chylde’: Representations of extra‐marital pregnancy in the middle English Lyric

Cartlidge, Neil

doi:10.1080/00138389808599143

Cited by 5 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…They point me out with nods and judge me worthy of the pyre, because I once sinned." [63] The response is similar two centuries later in an Elizabethan bilingual carol, "Up Y arose in verno tempore (in springtime)," which purports to transcribe the private thoughts of a woman who is considering infanticide. Pregnant by a cleric, she is afraid to tell her parents or her lover, and tries to think through what to do about her dire situation.…”

Section: Representations Of Medieval Cases Of Murderous Mothersmentioning

confidence: 95%

Women Who Refuse to Mother: Complicating the Ideology of Motherhood in Northern European Art, 1400-1600

Wolfthal

2022

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Section: Representations Of Medieval Cases Of Murderous Mothersmentioning

confidence: 95%

Women Who Refuse to Mother: Complicating the Ideology of Motherhood in Northern European Art, 1400-1600

Wolfthal

2022

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“…13 Thus ''even while the lyrics…tend to subordinate sympathy to satire, they testify to a deep anxiety about extra-marital pregnancy in the universal imagination of the late Middle Ages.'' 14 It was Freud who inaugurated the view that humor can reflect anxiety, but it was also Freud who observed that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. 15 Whether humor merely underlines social anxieties or whether it alleviates them has been debated at length; the most likely answer seems to be that it can do either, depending on many variables.…”

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confidence: 97%

The Text and the Body in Middle English Seduction Lyrics

Bayless

2008

Neophilologus

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Middle English comic seduction lyrics illuminate the similarities between the comic process and the seduction process. Early in the process, language and abstraction are paramount, but events reveal that language is being used to cloak carnality, and the result of both the joke and the seduction is the exposure of bodily realities. The corpus of Middle English seduction lyrics, from ''Joly Jankyn'' to ''I haue a newe garden,'' illustrates the process of unveiling both meaning and body; in the inevitable comic incarnation it is always the woman who is left holding the baby.Keywords Middle English Á Poetry Á Humor Á Language Á Body Middle English comic seduction lyrics have not received much critical attention, yet these poems are rich in their understanding of the way in which language and the body intertwine in the process of seduction. They have much to tell us, moreover, about the essential similarities between the comic process and the seductive process, both processes fundamental to the poems. In this article I will explore these seduction lyrics and show the ways in which seemingly simple humor can illuminate the complexities and similarities of language and the human body.Comic seduction lyrics formed a small but distinct genre in Middle English, appearing in both a simple form and a more complex form. In the simple type, the seduction, or merely the sexual act itself, forms the whole of the poem; the humor of the piece stems from the metaphors used to mask the obscenity. These range from a piece about a maid who wants a pudding that ''grows out of a man'' and ''will stand

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Abortion Medieval Style? Assaults on Pregnant Women in Later Medieval England

Butler

2011

Women's Studies

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In the year 1304, Matilda Bonamy of Guernsey, a young woman from one of the Anglo-Norman island's most established and affluent families, found herself in a predicament familiar to many of today's youth. A liaison with Jordan Clouet, also from a family of long provenance in Guernsey if not as comfortable, had left her pregnant. To Matilda the solution to the problem was obvious: marriage. An exchange of vows before the birth of the child would avoid any stigma or legal impediment of bastardy. Clouet, however, was not compliant with her wishes. He steadfastly refused to marry her. Faced with the shameful prospect of single parenthood to an illegitimate child, Bonamy turned to the church in an effort to find support for her cause. Jordan's obstinacy prevented the court from hearing the suit; he ignored repeated summonses to appear before the bishop. Given the church's promarital stance, Jordan probably supposed the best strategy was non-appearance, in the hopes that the court could not conduct a proper case in his absence (Donahue 205). What he did not count on was being excommunicated. To offer Jordan added incentive to respond to the citation, the court awarded Matilda letters informing Jordan of his excommunication. When she met with Jordan to consider the matter, he was fuming, suddenly finding himself backed into a corner. Excommunication was a serious disability in fourteenth-century society: once announced, no good Christian might converse with him without risking excommunication themselves. An excommunicate was not only prohibited from enjoying the sacraments, but was ousted also from the protections of the common law-endangering the repayment of any

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‘Alas, i go with chylde’: Representations of extra‐marital pregnancy in the middle English Lyric

Cited by 5 publications

References 14 publications

Women Who Refuse to Mother: Complicating the Ideology of Motherhood in Northern European Art, 1400-1600

Women Who Refuse to Mother: Complicating the Ideology of Motherhood in Northern European Art, 1400-1600

The Text and the Body in Middle English Seduction Lyrics

Abortion Medieval Style? Assaults on Pregnant Women in Later Medieval England

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