Absent Fathers and Searching Sons in Sir Degaré

ABSTRACT

Critical readings of the Middle English romance Sir Degaré (c. 1330) have emphasized Degaré’s coming-of-age as well as troubled incestuous hints in the king toward his daughter, at the cost of overlooking the enormity of the fairy knight’s sexual assault and abandonment of her. Recognizing the violation of the fairy knight into the human world, and more importantly his prominent absence, may help contextualize Degaré’s quest to resolve his dismembered family and lost father. Such an interpretation resituates Degaré’s actions as those of an intermediary meaningfully redressing his father’s unchivalrous behaviors rather than simply framing a heroic narrative of attainment.

Acknowledgement

My thanks to the British Library for their permission in arranging manuscripts for inspection.

Notes

¹ Auchinleck, Adv. MS 19.2.1 (c. 1330), BL MS Egerton 2862 (c. 1400), Cambridge MS Ff. 2.38 (c. 1450), Bodleian MS Rawlinson Poetry 34 (c. 1450), Bodleian MS Douce 261 (1561), and BL Add. MS 27879 (1650); black-letter editions include Wynkyn de Worde (c. 1512, 1535), as well as John King (1560) and William Copland (1565). See also Sánchez-Martí (2009) for a discussion of printed romances.

² ME text references are from Laskaya and Salisbury (1995), except for Amis and Amiloun (Foster 2007), Havelok the Dane (Drake, Salisbury, & Herzman, 1997), and Chaucer texts (Benson 1987).