Digital Athelston: Electronic Edition of a Middle English Romance

Abstract

Athelston is a Middle English tail-rhyme romance which survives in just a single manuscript, MS175, preserved in Cambridge, Caius College Library. This thesis aims at providing an updated and improved edition of the text thanks to the aid of the digital medium. The work is divided into two main parts, where the first section approaches the text from a more traditional perspective to analyse the literary importance of Athelston, spanning through its linguistic, cultural and legal features. Starting from a technical description of the manuscript and its contents, the focus then shifts towards a detailed analysis of the setting, sources and legal implications of the romance. Throughout these first few chapters, the presence of a distinct Englishness in the poem is highlighted, making it a unique work in the context of medieval literature, otherwise so heavily influenced by French originals. The textual analysis that follows, which is mostly based on Susan Wittig’s (2014) approach, sees formulaic language as its core feature, and explores the unique use of linguistic and semantic patterns – such as motifemes, type-scenes, episodes – in Athelston’s narrative structure. After this first general interpretation, the second section of this thesis delves into the digital edition of the text. As an introduction, the main advantages of digital editing are shown by comparing this research work with previous paper editions. Specific cases of the emendation process are also included to account for the palaeographic approach to the edition. Textual encoding is created using the TEI XML markup language, which allows for its incorporation in a visualisation software (EVT 1.2), displaying the finished product: an interactive digital edition. An extended note apparatus is included at the end, encompassing both insights on the emendation process as well as detailed contextual interpretation.