Perceval Passing Borders: Adaptation and Continuation of the French Conte du Graal Outside Medieval France
1 October - 15 November 2024
Biography
Dr. Jelmar Hugen is a lecturer of Historical Dutch Literature at the University of Leiden. Between 2016 and 2024 he taught courses on historical literature, multilingualism and literary theory at the University of Utrecht and University College Utrecht. In December 2022 he completed his Ph.D. at the University of Utrecht, which focused on the multilingual dynamics of Dutch literature from late medieval Flanders. Whilst working on medieval multilingualism, he also developed as a specialist of Middle Dutch Arthurian literature. Since 2020 he has been the head bibliographer of the Dutch branch of the International Arthurian Society. Furthermore, he is an editor and the principal corrector of the popular-scientific journal Madoc. He is also one of the founders of Ionc, the international network for Dutch and Flemish Ph.D. students of Medieval Studies.
Dr. Hugen’s stay at Bristol will be his third extended stay abroad as a student or researcher. During his BA in Dutch Literature at the University of Leiden, he attended Clare College, Cambridge University as an Erasmus student (2014). As a research MA student at the University of Utrecht, he spent six months at Harvard University after having been awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to work on literary continuation in the Middle Dutch Arthurian romance Walewein. During his career he has taught courses and presented lectures at various universities and centres of higher learning in the Netherlands, Belgium, France, England and the United States of America. Dr. Hugen’s research activities are marked by interdisciplinary, transnational approaches in which literary studies coincide with the study of multilingual cultures, manuscript studies and modern literary theories. His current research investigates the literary practice of continuation, derivation and rewriting in the European romance traditions of the late Middle Ages.
Research Summary
Dr. Hugen and Professor Ad Putter will collaborate on a new transnational approach to narrative transformation as a literary practice in the European romance tradition. Their focus will be on continuations and rewritings of the Old French Arthurian romance Conte du Graal by Chrétien de Troyes produced outside the Francophone sphere. Working towards a joint publication, Hugen and Putter examine two extraordinary derivations from the Grail romance: the Middle Dutch Moriaen, which newly introduces an illegitimate black son of the Grail knight Perceval, and the Middle English Sir Perceval of Galles, which adapts the Holy quest by completely omitting the Holy Grail from the story. Considering the points of overlap, influence and innovation in these two works in relation to the Old French Continuations of the Conte du graal, their analysis intends to explore an innovative transnational perspective that reevaluates the existing scholarship on narrative transformation focused on the Francophone centre through the literary-historical context of the Dutch and English Arthurian fringes. While in Bristol, Dr. Hugen will present a Lecture on adaptation and derivation in the European romance tradition as part of the Centre for Medieval Studies Research Seminar series. He will also speak on post-classical Arthurian romances as a guest lecturer in the BA English course ‘Literature 1150-1550’. Lastly, he will offer a Masterclass workshop to MA and Ph.D. students of Medieval Studies on Transkribus, an AI powered handwritten text recognition tool used by medievalists to transcribe, annotate and study medieval manuscripts and their contents. Dr. Hugen is hosted by Professor Ad Putter, Department of English.
You can contact Dr. Hugen's host Professor Ad Putter for further information.
