Natalia I Petrovskaia – författare

This is Not a Grail Romance provides answers to some of the most important questions surrounding the medieval Welsh Arthurian tale Historia Peredur vab Efrawc, one of the few surviving medieval Welsh narrative compositions, and an important member of the ‘Grail’ family of medieval European narratives. The study demonstrates that Historia Peredur is an original Welsh composition, rather than (as previous theories have suggested) being an adaptation of the twelfth-century French grail romance. The new analysis of the structure of Historia Peredur presented here shows it to be as complex as it has always been thought – but also more formal, and the result of intentional and intricate design. The seeming inconsistencies or oddities in Historia Peredur can be understood by reading it in its medieval Welsh cultural context, allowing the modern reader a greater appreciation of both the narrative and the culture that produced it. The University of Wales Press gratefully acknowledges the funding support of the Maartje Draak Fund from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, of the Utrecht University Institute for Cultural Inquiry, and of the Books Council of Wales, in publication of this book.

The Mabinogion Set is a book about the most famous of medieval Welsh stories: the Four Branches of the Mabinogi. It is also a book about a mathematical phenomenon: fractals. Fractals are mathematical patterns that repeat at every scale, and this study argues that, like natural fractals (snowflakes, tree branches), the Four Branches of the Mabinogi have a repeating structure. In putting forward this new theory, The Mabinogion Set proposes a new type of structural analysis: formal narrative topology, which pays attention not to themes or plot elements but to patterns of repetition within a story. The author also explores the implications of a topological analysis of the Four Branches on our understanding of their possible oral or written origins, authorship, transmission, memorability and performance.

This book explores the reception of the medieval Irish tradition of fantastic journey tales in Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, C.S. Lewis's The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Umberto Eco's Baudolino, and the science fiction television franchises Star Trek and Stargate. In doing so, the book opens the door to a new history of literary reception, using Old Irish genre categories to analyse post-medieval texts. It aims to show that there is a family of texts produced in the post-medieval period that are heirs of the medieval Irish literary tradition of fantastic voyage narratives and that using Old Irish genre categories to analyse post-medieval works can open up new perspectives in our understanding of these works.