Forging an Oral Style? Havelok and The Fiction of Orality.

The article critiques the Middle English romantic poem "Havelok," offers an alternative reading by arguing that its orality is as much a deliberate literary construct as its so-called realism. It addresses the basis of arguments for "Havelok's" oral traditional origins, the ways by which the anonymous "Havelok" poet streamlines his narrative into two parallel stories, and analysis of the poem.