Full size book cover of Memory and Medievalism in George RR Martin and Game of Thrones: The Keeper of All Our Memories}

Memory and Medievalism in George RR Martin and Game of Thrones: The Keeper of All Our Memories

Carolyne Larrington, Anna Czarnowus

This book explores the connections between history and fantasy in George RR Martin's immensely popular book series 'A Song of Ice and Fire' and the international TV sensation HBO TV's Game of Thrones . Acknowledging the final season's foregrounding of the cultural centrality of history, truth and memory in the confrontation between Bran and the Night King, the volume takes full account of the TV show's conclusion in its multiple readings across from medieval history, its institutions and practices, as depicted in the books to the show's own particular medievalism. The topics under discussion include the treatment of the historical phenomena of chivalry, tournaments, dreams, models of education, and the supernatural, and the different ways in which these are mediated in Martin's books and the TV show. The collection also includes a new study of one of Martin's key sources, Maurice Druon's Les Rois Maudits , in-depth explorations of major characters in their medieval contexts, and provocative reflections on the show's controversial handling of gender and power politics.

Written by an international team of medieval scholars, historians, literary and cultural experts, bringing their own unique perspectives to the multiple societies, belief-systems and customs of the 'Game of Thrones' universe, Memory and Medievalism in George RR Martin and Game of Thrones offers original and sparky insights into the world-building of books and show.

Publisher

Bloomsbury Academic

Publication Date

9/8/2022

ISBN

9781350269590

Pages

238

Categories

About the Author

Portrait of author Carolyne Larrington
Carolyne Larrington
Tutorial Fellow in English [at St John's College, Oxford]

Dr. Carolyne Larrington teaches medieval English literature in the college, ranging from the earliest Old English to the beginning of the Renaissance period.

Dr Larrington's research interests are in Old Icelandic literature, medieval women's writing, European Arthurian literature, and, most recently, medieval emotion. She has published on Old English and Old Icelandic wisdom poetry, compiled Women and Writing in Medieval Europe: A Sourcebook and edited two collections of essays on the Old Norse Poetic Edda. Her revised and expanded translation of the Poetic Edda, just published, is the standard. Her most recent monograph is King Arthur's Enchantresses: Morgan and Her Sisters in Arthurian Tradition which appeared from IB Tauris in June 2006. Her book on sibling relations in European medieval literature, and a new popular book on British folklore, The Land of the Green Man will be published in 2015; a BBC Radio 4 series based on the folklore book has also been commissioned. She is currently editing a collection of essays on emotion in Arthurian literature, and a Handbook to Eddic Poetry. She has been until recently editor-in-chief of the journal Viking and Medieval Scandinavia, and the President of the Viking Society for Northern Research, the British scholarly society for Old Norse study.

(from https://www.sjc.ox.ac.uk/945-714/Dr-C...)

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