Does edible matter seem to have more agency or affect than nonedible or other inanimate matter? Why? How do the foods we eat, the potions we drink, the medicine we inject, the drugs we habituate all work as affecting assemblages?

In her preface to VM Jane Bennett seeks to expose a ‘vital materiality’ that she compares to “childhood experiences” in “a worlid populated by animate things rather than passive objects” (vii). How can medieval or middle English texts like Guigmar and Sir Clegus be examined in terms of this adolescent mindset? The medieval world seems to be ridden with “engagements with vibrant matter and intelligible things” (viii)–like the hind in Guigmar or the concept of fortune or virtue in Sir Clegus, where wealth is the driving force of fate. Is the modern mindset more or less open to objects as possessing a vitality?

Sir Clegus presents us with the same moral ambiguities as Guigmar. To what extent can his generosity be considered a flaw as opposed to a virtue? How can virtues and flaws be considered objects within the text?