CMS Convivium: PhD Candidates Ariana Sider and Bard Swallow

We are excited to welcome two of our PhD Candidates from the Centre for Medieval Studies, who will present their in-progress research.

Ariana Sider (CMS PhD Candidate), Fixing Senses in Late-Medieval Tournai: The Example of Méhaut de Waudripont
Bard Swallow (CMS PhD Candidate), 'Translatio' of the Untranslatable: writing an English verse form in Latin

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Abstracts

Ariana Sider, Fixing Senses in Late-Medieval Tournai: The Example of Méhaut de Waudripont

As she was nearing the end of her life, Méhaut de Waudripont, a wealthy widow from the northern French town of Tournai, did what any sensible, God-fearing late-medieval person ought to do. First in 1345 and again in 1348, Méhaut set out post-mortem provisions by means of two wills, making material and monetary bequests to secure the salvation of her soul. In this paper, I will probe the spiritual, soul-saving strategy that undergirds Méhaut’s wills. Focusing on Méhaut’s bequests, I will emphasize the centrality of the sensorium in Méhaut’s soul-saving strategy and the “intersensoriality” of her testamentary practice. In doing so, I will argue that Méhaut sought to use her bequests to stimulate sensations for the salvation of her soul. 

Bard Swallow, 'Translatio' of the Untranslatable: writing an English verse form in Latin

When one language is incorporated into a poem primarily in another language, what becomes of the poem’s prosodic form? Which formal elements are strongly tied to a language and which are commensurable or translatable? This paper will discuss a group of fourteenth-century Anglo-Latin poems written primarily in Latin but using a Middle English refrain and stanza form. For the authors of these poems, the Middle English stanza form proved commensurable but the refrain was untranslatable and had to be carried over in the original language. This paper will consider what the authors of these poems gained from using Latin instead of Middle English to write an originally-Middle English stanza form. It will also consider the possible significance of borrowing this Middle English refrain and stanza form.