Abstract

This article argues that the author of the fourteenth-century Middle English romance Octavian Imperator rewrites the beheading motif frequently found in literature, especially in medieval romance. More specifically, it demonstrates how the poet resignifies the giant’s severed head as an emblem not of the untested knight but, instead, of a lowly butcher, and reveals how, through semantic links and parallel descriptions of physical traits and behavioral characteristics, the narrative ties the butcher to non-Christian “Others” such as Saracens and Jews, and aligns all three groups with the figure of the knight, revealing the narrative’s engagement with larger thematic concerns of racial, ethnic, and class differences.