Landscape and Soundscape in Sir Orfeo

Abstract

Abstract: The Middle English lay Sir Orfeo retains the mythological tradition of Orpheus and Eurydice in the European classical narratives and highlights the close relationship between the senses and self-perception. After the abduction of his queen, Sir Orfeo chooses to understand the world around him by “looking” and “listening” selectively, experiencing intermittent blindness and deafness while moving through alternating visual and auditory spaces, and eventually coming out of his seclusion to re-take his crown. The minstrel not only emphasizes the dominant role of landscape and soundscape in Sir Orfeo’s body performance and self-definition, self-perception and his outlook of the world, but also demonstrates the strategy of cultural translation in addressing the ancient European cultural heritage and the target audience as well.

Key words: Sir Orfeo, landscape, soundscape, self-definition

Zhang Yating. Landscape and Soundscape in Sir Orfeo[J]. Foreign Literature Studies, 2019, 41(6): 92-101.

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