BOUNDARIES OF THE BODY POLITICS IN MEDIEVAL HAGIOGRAPHICAL ROMANCE
BOUNDARIES OF THE BODY POLITICS IN MEDIEVAL HAGIOGRAPHICAL ROMANCE

Summary/Abstract: The boundaries addressed in Medieval England are of various kinds. They include not only the socio-cultural, political and geographical frontiers that romance of medieval England imagine and imply, but also demarcations of metaphors, such as the boundary between factuality and fictionality; boundaries between different genres of literature; and boundaries between different kinds of experience such as magic, miracles, supernatural and divine. Particularly tangible manifestations of divine favour abound in the romances of medieval England. In this sense, La Estoire de Seint Aedward le rei is an intensely body-conscious text, and this paper looks into the boundaries of the king’s body and the body politics in this hagiographical romance. The aim of this paper is to explore how the boundaries of Edward will be reshaped and how each Edward is erased in turn to make a room for the next Edward, where both the manuscript and his body are re-inscribed with a new agenda.

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