Rebecca Ellen Newby

Myfyriwr ymchwil, English Literature, Yr Ysgol Saesneg, Cyfathrebu ac Athroniaeth

: newbyr1@cardiff.ac.uk
: 0.44, Adeilad John Percival , Rhodfa Colum, Caerdydd, CF10 3EU

Mae'r cynnwys hwn ar gael yn Saesneg yn unig.

I am a doctoral candidate with a strong academic record, working in English and French medieval studies. I teach first-year literature modules, and have contributed to a third-year module on French Arthurian romances. I regularly attend research seminars in the Medieval and Early Modern Research Initiative (MEMORI) series, of which I am also a member, and those of the Centre for the Study of Medieval Society and Culture (CSMSC), both convened at Cardiff University.

I have given several conference papers on topics ranging from the medieval ‘king-and-subject’ ballad tradition to narrative closure in Chrétien de Troyes' Erec et Enide; I have completed a journal article on the latter subject, forthcoming in the next edition of Arthurian Literature in early 2018. I gave a version of this paper at the International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, MI in May 2017, for which I was nominated for the ‘Fair Unknown Award’ for the best early-career researcher. I also organised a postgraduate conference that took place at Cardiff University in June 2017 and I am the English Strand Editor of the AHRC journal Question.

I have been awarded several prizes and scholarships, including funding for my MA study (from which I graduated with Distinction) and the Sir Julian Hodge Prize for the best performance in BA English Literature. In 2015, I won funding from the South West and Wales Doctoral Training Partnerships (AHRC) for my current research project.

Diddordebau ymchwil

Medieval Literature, Medieval Romance, Geoffrey Chaucer, Chretien de Troyes, Endings, Closure, Medieval Literary Theory.

Traethawd ymchwil

The Unwhole Text of Medieval Literature

There is widespread academic interest in the medieval ‘poetics of continuation,’ and a number of critics have investigated the body of materials that spanned from the apparently incomplete works of poets like Chrétien de Troyes, Guillaume de Lorris, William Langland and Geoffrey Chaucer and the cultural conditions that fuelled this literary practice. However, there is no detailed study of the construction and jettison of the original works, and the cultural significance of these ‘unwhole’ texts, despite their prevalence in the medieval literary canon. Perceval ou le Conte du Graal and Le Chevalier de la Charrette, the Roman de la Rose, Piers Plowman and the Canterbury Tales are all examples of distinguished and highly visible medieval texts that could be deemed incomplete, unfinished or unwhole in some way. My research project therefore sets out to track this kind of literary production over the course of the medieval period, and hopes to shed new light on the phenomenon by reading these texts in dialogue with one another.