Modern and Medieval Views on Swooning: The Literary and Medical Contexts of Fainting in Romance
- Author / Editor
- Weiss, Judith.
Modern and Medieval Views on Swooning: The Literary and Medical Contexts of Fainting in Romance
- Published
- Rhiannon Purdie and Michael Cichon, eds. Medieval Romance, Medieval Contexts. Studies in Medieval Romance (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2011), pp. 121-34.
- Series
- Studies in Medieval Romance.
- Description
- Surveys representations of male and female fainting in medieval romances and "chansons de geste," and describes the medieval medical status of fainting ("syncope"). Considers Troilus' swoon in TC 3, observing that the "precision of Chaucer's medical references" and the long tradition of literary fainting should deter modern readers from oversimplifying the action as an unmanly or a "feminine" characteristic and encourage us instead to see it as evidence of strong emotion.
- Contributor
- Purdie, Rhiannon, ed.
- Cichon, Michael, ed.
- Alternative Title
- Medieval Romance, Medieval Contexts.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Troilus and Criseyde