Reading the Diptych: The Awntyrs off Arthure, Medium, and Memory

Drawing on the psychology of reading and psychoanalytical notions of the uncanny and cryptonymy, this essay argues that the Awntyrs off Arthure resists the cognitive processes involved in reading narrative. Through a spectral encounter that is forgotten yet remembered, the poem haunts its audience and casts a critical shadow over the Arthurian court.