Subterranean Knowledge in Medieval English Literature

This dissertation examines literary representations of subterranean spaces in English literature from 1066 to 1500. Medieval geological knowledge was a nascent but growing field as the expanding exploitation of mineral resources spurred greater intellectual speculation about the underground and lithic materials. While many literary writers display an interest in the natural philosophy of the subterranean, they also employed narratives of underground exploration and emergence to articulate political, social, and ideological concerns. Often, medieval texts used subterranean spaces in order to speculate about conflicting systems of authority and knowledge. In this dissertation, I argue that medieval English literature utilized the subterranean to articulate questions of national identity in the wake of the Norman Conquest, to explore notions of universalizing courtly behavior, to express discomfort with the ambiguous cause of dreams, and to convey the relationship between pagan and Christian ideologies. My dissertation indicates that the inherently mysterious and inaccessible qualities of the subterranean made it the perfect vehicle to symbolically represent the contradictions, ambiguities, and alternative epistemologies observed in English medieval literary culture.