Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Fictions of life and death: Tomb automata in medieval romance

  • Short Essay
  • Published:
postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

While automata appear in medieval European textual sources in many different settings, they frequently cluster around tombs, memorials and other places associated with the dead. In several different literary examples, automata expose the unstable definitions of ‘life’ and ‘death’ and reveal contemporary ideas about the complexity and permeability of these categories.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. See Abbreviations (below) for a list of abbreviations of primary literary works cited throughout this essay.

  2. Thomas's tale only exists in 10 fragments, two of which are now lost. The episode with the statues exists in the (now lost) Turin fragment. See Thomas of Britain (1991, ix–xi). There is, however, an Old Norse translation by a monk, Robert, of Thomas’ Tristran, known as the Tristansage, which dates from 1226. Textual scholars have noted that this Old Norse translation is the best translation of Thomas’ entire work, as it contains the only complete direct narrative of the events in Thomas’ Tristran. See Bédier (1905); Hatto (1960); Kölbing (1978); Loomis (1931); and Schach (1973). The chapters relating to the Hall of Statues exist completely in the Old Norse Tristrams Saga ok Ísondar and partially in the Turin fragment of Thomas’ Tristran.

References

  • Bédier, J. 1905. Le Roman de Trisan par Thomas, poème du XIIe siècle, Vol. 2. Paris: Firmin-Didot.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hatto, A.T., ed. and trans. 1960. Gottfried von Strassburg: Tristan, with the surviving fragments of the Tristran of Thomas. New York: Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kölbing, E., ed. and trans. 1978 [1878]. Die nordische Version der Tristan Sage. Hildesheim, Germany: Georg Olms Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Loomis, R., trans. 1931. The Romance of Tristram and Ysolt by Thomas of Britain, translated from the Old French and the Old Norse. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schach, P., ed. and trans. 1973. The Saga of Tristram and Ísönd. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thomas of Britain. 1991. Tristran, ed. and trans. Stewart Gregory. New York: Garland Publishing.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of History, Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania

    E R Truitt

Authors
  1. E R Truitt
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Truitt, E. Fictions of life and death: Tomb automata in medieval romance. Postmedieval 1, 194–198 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1057/pmed.2010.21

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/pmed.2010.21

Search

Navigation