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Thomas Becket's Muslim Mother : = Imagining Englishness in the South English Legendary.

Record Type:	Language materials, manuscript : Monograph/item
Title/Author:	Thomas Becket's Muslim Mother :/
Reminder of title:	Imagining Englishness in the South English Legendary.
Author:	Conklin, Ashley R.
Description:	1 online resource (289 pages)
Notes:	Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 85-03, Section: A.
Contained By:	Dissertations Abstracts International85-03A.
Subject:	English literature. -
Online resource:	click for full text (PQDT)
ISBN:	9798380316507

Thomas Becket's Muslim Mother : = Imagining Englishness in the South English Legendary.
Conklin, Ashley R.

Thomas Becket's Muslim Mother :Imagining Englishness in the South English Legendary. - 1 online resource (289 pages)

Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 85-03, Section: A.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Rochester, 2023.

Includes bibliographical references

The South English Legendary Life of St Thomas of Canterbury imagines Englishness as a collective identity that encompasses categories of gender, religion, custom, geography, and language. The Life exists in two variant manuscript families, commonly known as the Laud and Harley texts. Though the manuscripts vary in their presentation of identity categories, both engage in race-making, Geraldine Heng's term for the process of hierarchizing human difference, in their constructions of national identity. Thomas Becket, the titular saint, is imagined by the Life as the representative of the "true" English folk in opposition to King Henry II, an illegitimate Anglo-Norman ruler. Central to this new English identity is the figure of Thomas's mother, a woman whom the Life reimagines as a Muslim princess, a racialized and Orientalized other. The Muslim princess motif, which is borrowed from romance, is infused with cultural meaning. Thomas's mother is a paradox, in that she simultaneously represents all that is desirable in her unnamed Eastern country and English anxiety about hybridity and alterity. Through the Muslim princess, the Life enacts an English cultural fantasy predicated on both fear and desire; the princess's desire for Gilbert Becket, and, through him, Englishness, privileges English identity, but her zealous pursuit of Gilbert, from the Holy Land to England, provokes anxiety about her uncontained, racialized femininity. The Life engages with both emotions in its constructions of Englishness. Ultimately, through a process of religious and cultural assimilation, as well as divine intervention, the Muslim princess is transformed from an exotic, racialized other into the "proper" English mother of the future martyr, St Thomas. Within the Life, Thomas's martyrdom for the English people creates an exceptional and homogenous Englishness, as the whole of England gathers around his sanctified body. Though the Muslim princess's disruptive alterity disappears from the narrative, as does the princess herself, her steadfast faith and fortitude remain in Thomas, allowing him to become the representative of true Englishness.

Electronic reproduction.
Ann Arbor, Mich. :
ProQuest,
2024

Mode of access: World Wide Web

ISBN: 9798380316507Subjects--Topical Terms:

555406
English literature.
Subjects--Index Terms:

Muslim princessIndex Terms--Genre/Form:

554714
Electronic books.

Thomas Becket's Muslim Mother : = Imagining Englishness in the South English Legendary.
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520 $a The South English Legendary Life of St Thomas of Canterbury imagines Englishness as a collective identity that encompasses categories of gender, religion, custom, geography, and language. The Life exists in two variant manuscript families, commonly known as the Laud and Harley texts. Though the manuscripts vary in their presentation of identity categories, both engage in race-making, Geraldine Heng's term for the process of hierarchizing human difference, in their constructions of national identity. Thomas Becket, the titular saint, is imagined by the Life as the representative of the "true" English folk in opposition to King Henry II, an illegitimate Anglo-Norman ruler. Central to this new English identity is the figure of Thomas's mother, a woman whom the Life reimagines as a Muslim princess, a racialized and Orientalized other. The Muslim princess motif, which is borrowed from romance, is infused with cultural meaning. Thomas's mother is a paradox, in that she simultaneously represents all that is desirable in her unnamed Eastern country and English anxiety about hybridity and alterity. Through the Muslim princess, the Life enacts an English cultural fantasy predicated on both fear and desire; the princess's desire for Gilbert Becket, and, through him, Englishness, privileges English identity, but her zealous pursuit of Gilbert, from the Holy Land to England, provokes anxiety about her uncontained, racialized femininity. The Life engages with both emotions in its constructions of Englishness. Ultimately, through a process of religious and cultural assimilation, as well as divine intervention, the Muslim princess is transformed from an exotic, racialized other into the "proper" English mother of the future martyr, St Thomas. Within the Life, Thomas's martyrdom for the English people creates an exceptional and homogenous Englishness, as the whole of England gathers around his sanctified body. Though the Muslim princess's disruptive alterity disappears from the narrative, as does the princess herself, her steadfast faith and fortitude remain in Thomas, allowing him to become the representative of true Englishness.
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