3 - Topography, Redaction, and Inheritance: The Initial Steps of Memory

Summary

And yf that olde bokes were aweye,

Yloren were of remembraunce the keye.

(LGW F25–6)

In the previous chapter it became clear that the remembering subject must be willing to perform memory work in order for the process of recollection to be successful. This was examined in terms of voluntary intellection and, in a medieval romance, such a journey into memory must begin in order for the current romance to exist at all. As was discussed in the Introduction, romances are glittering examples of a golden age of the past and the sense of “looking back” is encoded in the narratives’ use of past places and literary analogues. We are always still very much in the present tale but, at the same time, a journey takes place into the memorial store and this cannot be avoided. The characters, of course, have no choice in the matter – they are part of the current narrative which has its own challenges regarding memory and will be discussed in subsequent chapters. However, an audience chooses to enter a world of past narratives in the first place and this chapter will examine the ways in which a journey into the past is encouraged.

The chapter will begin by examining the use of places which, through imaginative use of coincidence and correspondence, exploits geographical location to close the gap between past and present. The literal journey to a new place is not required – we are already there – but romances allow us to travel back in time to where the characters once lived and, during the narrative, can exist again, comparing this process to the literary art of redaction. Romances, of course, often use conventional and traditional elements which can be traced to similar, earlier tales, the ghosts of which may still be visible beneath the surface of the current incarnation. The various places in Sir Orfeo reveal the ways in which older places (from the previous versions of the famous classical myth) have been used and redeveloped (or recollected) in order to have some relevance to the Middle English account.