Bibliography
  1. Home
  2. Bibliography
  3. Panxhi (Lindsey Zachary) 2015 1

Panxhi, Lindsey Zachary, “Rewriting the werewolf and rehabilitating the Irish in the Topographia Hibernica of Gerald of Wales”, Viator 46:3 (2015): 21–40.

  • journal article
Citation details
Contributors
Article
“Rewriting the werewolf and rehabilitating the Irish in the Topographia Hibernica of Gerald of Wales”
Periodical
Volume
46
Pages
21–40
BibTeX
Description
Abstract (cited)
In his twelfth-century travel narrative, the Topographia Hibernica (The Topography of Ireland), Gerald of Wales writes of an encounter between a priest and a pair of Irish werewolves, who ask the priest to administer the viaticum to the sickly she-wolf before her death. Observing the werewolves’ devout words and sincere demeanor, the priest complies, but his actions are later questioned in a synod. Postcolonial scholarship interprets Gerald’s account as a pro-Norman depiction of the Irish as barbarians, which is a tenable reading in the first recension of the text. However, such an interpretation is complicated by passages Gerald adds in four subsequent recensions. This article offers a corrective reading by examining the content of Gerald’s later recensions that has been repeatedly overlooked, and by suggesting that the episode is most significantly shaped by Gerald’s identity as a clerical reformer, rather than as a court writer seeking to debase the Irish.
Subjects and topics
Sources
Texts
web page identifiers
Contributors
Dennis Groenewegen
Page created
February 2018, last updated: April 2018
Retrieved from ‘https://codecs.vanhamel.nl/index.php?title=Panxhi_(Lindsey_Zachary)_2015_1&oldid=134332’