Leaving childhood, leaving the city: variations on the inside/outside dynamics in Boeve de Haumtone and Horn

Abstract

Horn by Thomas and Boeve de Haumtone, two Anglo-Norman epic poems composed in England during the last quarter of the twelfth century, show a similar plot structure: both works tell the hero’s full life, from childhood to death. However, in the epi- sode narrating the children’s chivalric initiation —which in both cases entails coming out of the city, thus, activating the inside/outside dynamics— the narrative patterns of these poems take opposite directions. Boeve’s poet, on the one hand, multiplies the conflicts motivating the hero to leave the city’s ease behind, and prove his military value. Thomas, on the other hand, delays the child’s initiation with a prolific description of a joyful and festive city, inhabited by maidens willing to enclose the hero within the urban walls. The aim of this article is to analyze those differences apparent in the inside/outside dynamics, since they provide a clear hint of the particular relationship established by the authors of each work with the genre within which they inscribe their works, the chanson de geste.