King Horn Gender Roles
In this essay I will discuss the ways in which the story of King Horn and the stories of the saint’s lives from the Katherine Group can be read as representations of the way women were treated and gender roles were viewed in the medieval period. I will do this by analysing the stories and language used within the text, how women are written about and portrayed, and how, in King Horn, the gender roles expected are reversed between the female and male character, and what that could mean.
The Katherine Group is a group of saints; Saint Katherine, Saint Juliana and Saint Margaret. All three of the stories about these women share striking similarities, particularly how they are all portrayed as young, virgin girls, and therefore they were seen …show more content…
It is a classic example of medieval romance literature, following the typical features of a medieval romance story, a few including exile leading to return, a beautiful endangered lady in need of saving, and a monstrous or magical challenger. The difference, however, is that it could be argued that King Horn, while following the rules of these very typical tropes, is not the typical hegemonic male; he does not perform gender roles that would have been expected of him. As Michael Hays points out in his adaptation (1999, iii) King Horn is not written in the style of traditional medieval romances, since commonly they are written centred around action instead of emotion, while King Horn develops the relationship between Horn and Rymenheilde in an unusually detailed description. In the story, it is said that he is “a bold lad, tall, fair and strong”. (Hays, p.7) This description suggests that even the enemies of the story, the Saracens, consider him to be too attractive to be outright murdered. We also see his love interest, Rymenheilde, forgoing traditional gendered expectations. She is a strong character, and perhaps could even be considered an unusual portrayal of a woman for the time in which it was written, although it has been suggested that the reason for her being so headstrong was due to her being overcome by passion for
The Katherine Group is a group of saints; Saint Katherine, Saint Juliana and Saint Margaret. All three of the stories about these women share striking similarities, particularly how they are all portrayed as young, virgin girls, and therefore they were seen …show more content…
It is a classic example of medieval romance literature, following the typical features of a medieval romance story, a few including exile leading to return, a beautiful endangered lady in need of saving, and a monstrous or magical challenger. The difference, however, is that it could be argued that King Horn, while following the rules of these very typical tropes, is not the typical hegemonic male; he does not perform gender roles that would have been expected of him. As Michael Hays points out in his adaptation (1999, iii) King Horn is not written in the style of traditional medieval romances, since commonly they are written centred around action instead of emotion, while King Horn develops the relationship between Horn and Rymenheilde in an unusually detailed description. In the story, it is said that he is “a bold lad, tall, fair and strong”. (Hays, p.7) This description suggests that even the enemies of the story, the Saracens, consider him to be too attractive to be outright murdered. We also see his love interest, Rymenheilde, forgoing traditional gendered expectations. She is a strong character, and perhaps could even be considered an unusual portrayal of a woman for the time in which it was written, although it has been suggested that the reason for her being so headstrong was due to her being overcome by passion for