Ithaca College

Michael Twomey (Dana Professor, English) presented a paper at Western Michigan University's 50th annual International Congress on Medieval Studies on May 15th.

His paper, titled "Arthurian Ecotones," was one of two invited papers in a session on Arthurian landscapes that was sponsored by the journal Arthurian Literature (Cambridge, UK).  An ecotone is the space between two clearly-defined ecozones--such as a forest and a field--where the mingling of species from the two ecozones produces an "edge effect."  Twomey's paper argues that medieval romance writers not only incorporated ecotonal landscapes in their fictions, they situated transformative encounters in them.  Ecotones are thus environmental correlatives for important narrative events.  Modern medievalists have long overlooked ecotonal landscapes in medieval literature, mistaking them for the larger landscape features, such as forests, that ecotones abut.  In English, ecotones are often identified as "sides"; an example is the "water's side" from which King Arthur is taken to Avalon in the famous conclusion of Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur.