Bibliography
Jacobs, Lesley, “Trouble in the Island of the Mighty: kinship and violence in Branwen ferch Lŷr”, Viator 40:2 (2009): 113–133.
- journal article
Citation details
Contributors
Article
“Trouble in the Island of the Mighty: kinship and violence in Branwen ferch Lŷr”
Periodical
Viator: Medieval and Renaissance Studies 40:2 (2009)
Volume
40
Pages
113–133
BibTeX
Description
Abstract (cited)
This article reads the medieval Welsh prose tale Branwen ferch Lŷr as a narrative of kinship relations gone wrong. Using as a critical tool Frederic Jameson’s notion of the text as a space where social contradictions can be explored and resolved on a fictive level, this reading stresses how the international politics of dynastic alliance highlight the tensions already present in families in which the kinship status of half-siblings is ambiguous and inheritance practices in flux. In contrast to the traditional “peaceweaver” model, which posits marriage alliances as a method of solving existing feuds between two peoples, this reading argues that the exogamous alliance in Branwen serves to bring out conflicts previously existing within the circle of the original family. These conflicts stem from the medieval Welsh ideology of kinship operative in Branwen, which, while purportedly protective, ultimately destroys the British royal family and their hold on power.
web page identifiers
page name: Jacobs (Lesley) 2009a
page url: https://codecs.vanhamel.nl/Jacobs_(Lesley)_2009a
redirect: https://codecs.vanhamel.nl/Special:Redirect/page/25671
numerical alternative: https://codecs.vanhamel.nl/index.php?curid=25671
page ID: 25671
page ID tracker: https://codecs.vanhamel.nl/index.php?title=Show:ID&id=25671
Contributors
Dennis Groenewegen
Page created
July 2015, last updated: January 2019
