Saturday, October 31, 2009

Lusty, corrupted & going to hell

I was telling Nasreen I didn´t know if this story was feminist or antifeminist. But after going over my annotations, I conclude it´s antifeminist. It pushes the idea of the Virgin Mary as the ideal of womanhood and those women who deviate from that ---being more vocal, more (let´s no say manipulative) proactive about their needs and wants get drawn and quartered. Women who keep silent, do as their parents/authority figures tell them will be all right in the end. Humankind is naturally good, but it is Nurture that ruins humans, especially if Nurture is supplied by “bad” women who can´t keep silent. In the meantime men are off being knights and hermits. This book is a slap on the wrist of medieval women.
Some of you might say but what about Silence´s success as a man, doing manly things brilliantly? I think BECAUSE it was a situation created by a man, Evan, and resolved by a man, it had a sort of veneer of Reason, not transgression, and it was only temporary until Evan changed the law or died. It´s a man´s world and we women are just pawns in the chess game of life….

And then there´s the other detail of Silence being completely without any romantic/sexual needs or wants, she was in complete survival mode, trying to not get caught. But we never read of her even liking a man, just of her avoiding lusty Eufeme. And then there´s the correlation between Eufeme´s libido and Silence´s violence. Why is Eufeme, the Norwegian Other, the receptacle of all these non-virtuous/dishonorable characteristics?

We cannot forget the last lines of the book: “a woman has less motivation, provided that she even has the choice, to be good than to be bad. Doing the right thing comes unnaturally to her”. (313). These lines throw out the window whatever thoughts we had about Master Heldris being a medieval feminist. In his own way Master Heldris does the final reveal of the book: initially he writes about Eufemie and Cador, being one substance, one mind, and then further on that man is naturally good, only nurture corrupts him. But in the last two pages of the book, Master Heldris shows his true colors, he puts women in another category where they are already corrupt or NATURALLY leaning towards corruption. Textbook medieval stereotype.

And why´s there no love for the Irish ? Would Irish women then be in ANOTHER subcategory?

What about Merlin looking like a yeti? And, he knows “how things will turn out”, but he didn´t know Silence would show up and bait him with food?

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Vacillation

I'd like to TRY to make sense of some of the points we grappled with at the end of Monday night's Parzival discussion We've seen that there are several inconsistencies within characters in Parzival. Dr. Wenthe pointed out that Ither, who is initially treacherous towards Arthur and needlessly violent towards the Waleis, is later mourned by all and remembered fondly. This is one example of an inconsistency that made me question my reading ability. "Wait a minute," I thought, "Ither is a bad guy!" Wolfram combines two extremes within one character and never acknowledges that there might be something unusual about that.
Honestly, speaking of contrast, the first couple of lines intrigued and yet confused me; "If vacillation dwell with the heart the soul will will rue it. Shame and honour clash where the courage of a steadfast man is motley like the magpie" (15). The souls of those who waiver will suffer? A mixed fortune ahead for men of inconsistencies? Ugh, I would love for someone else to try to paraphrase this, because my definitions are muddled!
Throughout Parzival, I spent so much time trying to make sense of Wolfram's prologue and connect it to the rest of the story. But opposites abound and I can't extract a *singular* message. Parzival is both "sorry -- yet glad" (106) when Condwiramurs comes to him in distress. "Woman" is defined with two extremes, loyal and deceitful (70). The single word "woman" serves as one signifier with vacillating meaning. And Chapter 10 begins, "We are approaching strange tales such as can empty us of joy and bring high spirits: they have to do with both" (256).
Part of what I admire about Wolfram is that he's allowing for a wide range of human behavior and emotion -- he builds a complex plot with multidimensional characters. Much like the world as we know it, few things are black *or* white, but many are black *and* white (Feirefiz). Nothing is simple. I thought it was interesting that somebody in class mentioned oneness and singularity as the ultimate goal within the quest -- essentially meaning that characters cannot elevate themselves unless they strive for one single, worthy goal. Having a direct course of intention would be the opposite of vacillation, after all; and yet, I'm still stuck. I thought writing some of these thoughts out would help me draw a conclusion, but no. Perhaps someone will at least be able to add on...

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Teutonic Order of Knights

Hello, Arthurians! I just wanted to answer a question about my presentation on knighthood that I failed to answer last night. Dr. Wenthe asked about the Teutonic Order of Knights, and unfortunately I wasn't able to give any details about its statutes, but here's that info for you now!

Per Mike Lurie's research and presentation last week, we can understand Wolfram von Eschenbach to be a Teutonic knight, even though he identifies himself as a Bavarian knight (being from Bavaria), because he was buried in a church graveyard where Teutonic knights were buried.

As I mentioned in my presentation yesterday, many of the early Military-Hospitaller Orders were chartered around already extant groups of knights/soldiers/bodyguards who were engaged in the protection of pilgrims or hospitals for pilgrims in the Holy Land; the Teutonic Order was formed out of a defended hopsital for German Christian pilgrims. Around 1192 (at the end of the Third Crusade, or the King's Crusade, during which Richard the Lionheart tried to retake Jerusalem from Saladin and Frederick Barbarossa drowned in a river), the pope Clement III gave the Order of Teutonic Knights the thumbs-up, and in 1205 Pope Innocent III endowed them with this uniform: the white habit with a black cross. Their motto was "Helfen, Wehren, Heilen" -- "Help, Defend, Heal."

The statutes of the Order can be read in their entirety in a translation of a 1264 manuscript of the Teutonic "Book of the Order" here:
http://www.the-orb.net/encyclop/religion/monastic/tk_rule.html

The "Book of the Order" includes a list of reasons why the Order is valid and rules for the behavior of the knights. It's really fascinating, though it seems unlikely that the knights of the Order actually structured their lives thus-- particularly regarding chastity and gossiping. It's known that part of the Pope Approval Package was a dose of indulgences.

Here's an excerpt:

28. How the brethren shall set people a good example.

Whenever the brethren are travelling or going against the enemy or on other business, since they display outwardly by the Cross the sign of meekness and of the Order, they shall strive to show people, by examples of good deeds and useful words, that God is with and within them. If they are on the road at night, they may, after Compline or before Prime, speak of necessary and honest matters, but not in the hospice after Compline has been said, except as prescribed above. They shall avoid inns and places they know are of bad repute; also, in their lodging there shall be in the room where they sleep a light by night, if they can arrange it without great difficulty, so that no harm may come to their good reputation or to their effects. While on the road travelling from place to place, they may attend divine service and prayers wherever they are, and on their return to the house they may, because of weariness from arms or the road, be excused in the morning from Matins and from the Hours; not only those wearied from a journey, but also those who are engaged in necessary business of the house may be excused. Weddings and gatherings of knights and other assemblages, and frivolous amusements, by which through worldly pride the devil is served, the brethren shall rarely attend, though they may attend for the affairs of the Order or to win souls. The brethren shall avoid talking in suspect places and at suspect times with women and, above all, with maidens, and kissing women, which is an open indication of unchastity and worldly love, so that it is forbidden likewise to kiss even their own mothers and sisters. No brother shall have dealings with excommunicated people, or those who are publicly put under the ban, in matters not specially permitted. Likewise, no brother shall become a godfather, except in mortal emergency.

Teuton says heee-eey.

Monday, October 26, 2009

The quest for costly prizes

Throughout Wolfram Von Eschenbach's Parzival, I've fancied a thread of the ironic whenever Wolfram refers to what is required to maintain a knight in appropriate style. As a knight himself, Wolfram would know better than the poet Troyes what a knight needs and just how much it costs to procure all his equipment and horse(s), as well as bed, board and support for accompanying squires and pages when at home or on the road. And then additionally, money required to maintain a reputation for knightly generosity!

Both Troyes and Wolfram refer to a kingly gift that allows the would-be knight to set out on his adventure and earn honor.

In Parzival, Gahmuret's brother, the King, says, "My father left us both great wealth. I will mark you out an equal share, for I love you from my heart. Dazzling gems, red gold, men, weapons, mounts, clothes — accept as much from me as will let you travel as you please and maintain your name for generosity" (18). The King then gifts "all and more than he had asked: five chargers, picked and tried, strong, swift and spirited, the best in all his lands, numerous vessels of gold and many ingots ... a pile of precious stones ... When the panniers were full, the squires who were in charge of them were clothed in fine tunics and given good mounts" (19).

Conversely, Parzival's mother, although she gifts him, gifts him not with what he needs to become a knight and accrue honour, but with sackcloth and buskins. This leads to him having to steal armour by stripping it off Ither's body, bringing sin and dishonour upon himself.

Probably the wryest comment comes when Duke Lyppaut hears about Gawan's presence outside his castle: "Those engaged in warfare have always been forced to lay hand on costly prizes. The need to pay his mercenaries pressed heavily on honest Lyppaut, so that he at once concluded, 'I must acquire these stores peaceably or otherwise,' and set out after him" (187).

This knowledge of the prohibitive costs of knighthood lends further insight into the mass number of nobility who appear as knights in Parzival. Just about every knight seems to be a king or duke or son of one ... because nobody else could afford to be a knight! Wolfram wittily names and identifies each knight and refers to his lineage to point out the fact that he (not Wolfram) is rich and can easily afford to be one.

A note: The expense of becoming and remaining a knight was so prohibitive that during Henry I's reign of England and parts of France, some paid scutage — a money payment — rather than outfit themselves and report to service. As Christopher Gravett put it, "finance outweighed the ideals of chivalry" (Gravett 46). Not only the armor itself and weapons were expensive, but also well-bred, well-trained warhorses were insanely expensive ... as much as a small airplane might cost today, as one Web site puts it. Little wonder, then, that horses are the single most-stolen (er, acquired) commodity in Troyes' and Wolfram's stories. Chivalric notions rather go out the window when you're a lone knight on foot in heavy armor, hauling around swords and lances, don't they?

Wolfram seems particularly sensitive about this issue of stolen horses, as we see later in Parzival, this acquisition of prizes through combat is not condoned by the sagely hermits/monks we hear from. They condemn Parzival and Gawan for "stealing" armour and horses from their fallen foes. However, as knights, the duo had little other choice because they weren't exactly hauling around bags of gold ingots and precious stones with them to pay for new armour and horses! However, the repetition of horse theft throughout Parzival must make us wonder whether Wolfram's own quite-expensive charger was stolen at least once.

Thus, every knightly quest for adventure — or the Grail — includes also mini-quests for costly prizes to replace lost armor, broken weapons or stolen horses. Without those mini-quests, there could be no continuation of the larger, more important Quest.


Gravett, Christopher. Norman Knight A.D. 950-1204. Osceola, WI: Osprey Publishing, 1993.

Chivalrous Contradictions

While there are a gazillion fruitful threads to trace from Parzival, I am particularly drawn to the idea of steadfast loyalty as required in Christian knights, and the ways in which Wolfram's paragons of knighthood--Parzival, Gahumet, and Feirefiz--live up to this expectation. While each of these men pursue their quests unwaveringly, their individual adventures cause them to neglect, or even abandon, their families. To me, this shirking of family duties strongly contradicts the idea of steadfast loyalty which knights are meant to stand for.

This knightly inattention to familial responsibily is criticized when Feirefiz and Parzival first realize they are brothers. As they praise the noble character of their father, Gahumet, they also note his lack in their lives. Feirefiz says:

"Valiant man, he abandoned none who relied on him -- except that he left me fatherless! I have not forgiven my father this wrong. His wife who bore me died pining for the love she had lost in him. I should much like to see that man. I have been told there never was a better knight" (373).

To which Parzival replies:

"I have never seen him either ... I have been told that he achieved great exploits....He was at the service of the ladies, and if they were sincere they honestly requited it. He practised that for which the Christian faith is still honoured today, namely steadfast loyalty. Helped by a constant heart, he subdued all falsity in his doing" (374).

Both quotes show a noble and true Gahumet, yet both admit his shortcomings as a father. He is not true to his families. In much the same way, Parzival is an absent father and husband, and his womanizing brother also abandons a wife and kingdom (though, arguably, for her glory and with her assent). While these men feel pangs of love for their sweeties, they squelch these feelings in order to focus on their careers/missions. All three seem more interested in the idea of their absent wives and how this idea relates to themselves--manifested in the manly sufferings they endure--than they seem to be with their actual wives. (This is especially the case with Feirefiz, who so easily ditches his queen for an opportunity with an even lovelier women.) The choices these knights make in picking women seem almost arbitrary. What is of importance, is that knights represent a woman. This representation is necessary in order to imbue their actions with honor and prestige--ultimately, to make less selfish what are essentially selfish pursuits.

Yet even with this emphasis on absence and individual pursuit--or perhaps because of it--family emerges as a central theme of Wolfram's story. Only after Parzival and his brother are united does he gain access to Munsalvaesche and restore health to the Fisher King. And this restoration basically turns into a huge Gral Family reunion. The event at Munsalvaesche, combined with the marriage of Itonje and Gramoflanz, and the reunion of Arthur's family, brings Wolfram's narrative to a happy resolution. There are no more bleeding lances or festering wounds to contend with, manly honor can rest unchallenged, and lovers no longer sleep alone. Basically, the world is at peace as a result of families coming together.

Are Wolfram's knightly examples not living up to the ideal of steadfast loyalty? Or does their temporary abandonment of family basically serve the greater good--that being the ultimate reunion of the Gral Family? A necessary abandonment, perhaps?

In general, how does Wolfram's story comment on a knight's responsibility to his family?

Sunday, October 25, 2009

In the name of love...

I am fascinated by the tension in Parzival between knighthood and Love. While knights are bound to seek adventure and gain fame in order to honor and win the love of a lady, they are also at peril when they forget themselves and their higher ideals for this. It is taken for granted and expected that knights are “highly motivated” by their maidens and ladies. However, when it come to the Gral this natural behavior becomes complicated.

King Anfortas (the Fisher king) had been trusted to be the Protector of the Gral and its company. However, he was wounded with a poisonous spear for committing the folly of riding out to seek adventures in the name of love. In this respect von Eschenbach takes care of making it evident by narrating that his battle-cry was “Amor!” (244). In his court no one approved of his leaving on this quest. Consequently, the King who forgot his duty lost what is so precious to knights, his manliness.

It is interesting to note that it is his nephew who is commended the task of seeking the Gral years later. There seems to be a direct esoteric relation between Parzival’s sin and the King’s most distressing moment. The alignment of Saturn causes extreme cold, especially in the King’s wound. This time it can only be healed by thrusting the head of the spear whose venom causes warmth into the wound once more. It is this same day that Parzival is enthralled by his youthful imagination at the sight of the “three red tears of blood… upon the snow” (148) and the blood that drips from the Lance presented to the court at the Castle of Munsalvæsche. While Parzival is oblivious of the world around him for his immature and overwhelming thoughts of love, the King’s
Wolfram deviates from Chretien’s Grail story concerning what the grail really is and provides a detailed tale concerning Gawain and his disdainful duchess. His version of the Fisher King does not retain the mystic allure of Chretien’s tale. Wolfram’s version is a combination of humor and human frailty. I prefer Chretien’s version even though Wolfram “fills in the gaps” and the reader no longer needs to ask why. From Wolfram we learn that the duchess is guilty for what happened to the Fisher King. We also learn that she has never ceased to lament her dead lover even though she is Gawain’s wife.
It appears in the case of Gahmuret and later in the case of his piebald son that rich ladies had to fit out their knights and the knights would fight to bring honor and glory to the lady. It also appears that the knight could ask his lady into his bed once he had fulfilled his jousting requirements and brought fame and honor. They did not have to wait for the priest. In fact, the ladies have a strong role in the Wolfram story just as they have had in all the other tales.
Also I am not clear about Clinschor’s role other than locking up the ladies from Arthur’s family. His soldiers are present at the field when all their grandeur is being displayed. There is no great family reunion scene in this version.
Furthermore, it is interesting how Wolfram details clothes, gems, tents and their interiors. Is this a good way for us to understand medieval chivalric life? We learn that they eat at table when in the field under their tents, but they sit on quilts spread over mattresses which are placed on carpets. I was wondering what they sat on to eat; stools or benches? Another interesting touch that he adds is the sharing of platters between two people. Seems to suggest being of the inner fold if invited to share. The description of the mattresses gives a very oriental, sumptuous description. His use of color is great but I had to skip the three paragraphs at the end which had a list of names and gems.
Was the Infidel king North African or Indian? I was under the impression that his mother was a queen from around the Mediterranean; however, at the end he says they went to India and spread Christianity and all the kings were named John thus claiming that he is Prestor John. So both Parzival and his brother are invited to be part of the Round Table but both leave after accepting. In this version we are not told that Arthur’s Round Table will fall apart and there is no Galahad or Lancelot. Are Lancelot and Galahad part of the French canon? Also there are no giants or dwarfs. The “Other” here is the two hedgehog looking creatures who are important messengers. I am not too sure of the role of the Templers. Are they to protect the Gral? Then why do they also sortie out to fight. Why should Gawain be treated so shabbily by them?
Of course the best part was the news of Secundille’s death!

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Fall of Celtic Arthur (just a quick thought!)

While reading Parzival I cannot help but think of last weeks reading and Arthur's reaction to the quest. The question was raised in class (I think...) whether or not Arthur could survive with the grail. With the Arthur's eminent fall, the answer is obviously no. I feel this comes as a result that he is too deeply rooted in the Celtic and pagan history to be able to last in a world of Christianity. His extreme response to everyone leaving in a way demonstrates his knowledge that the hunt for Christianity will leave him behind. With all of his knights attention toward a more religious experience, Arthur's court crumbles.

Just a thought! Anyone want to share their insights?

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Free Will in "Quest"

In class, some of us alluded to the "fact" that the Grail Story, as depicted in the "Quest," was a story that was already authored--by this, I mean its characters and actions were pre-determined by God to follow the courses they did. Though this may be true, there are numerous instances in "Quest" where its principal characters are told they are the agents of their own destiny. This occurs most obviously with Lancelot, who is told repeatedly not only that he needs to shape up, but that it is in his power to do so. And when the story ends, we're left hanging, unsure of what his future holds.

The "Quest" tells us that "Each will be paid according to his just desserts" (154); and in the Bors section, that, "A man's heart is the helm of his ship..." (178). If these ideas hold true for the story, then we are dealing with characters who are actively creating their own destiny, as opposed to just fulfilling a role. Yet, the pre-determined nature of Galahad's life suggests otherwise--that everything is written, everything fated. What the heck is going on here?

I know this is a large can of worms, but I was wondering a few things:

How does free will operate in "Quest?" What purpose does Anonymous serve by including it and creating the tension between free will and determinism? Is the presence of free will solely an attempt to lend support to a complex, and in my opinion, extremely tenuous, theological idea?

Dear philosophers, maybe you'd like to weigh in on this question.

Yours,
Len e.

Monday, October 12, 2009

Peregrinations: an Apt Term

Reading Percival's story with a new take shows him as less of a yokel and more of a naive or "good," helpful soul. However, like Percival, the other knights are wandering through a dense forest which is symbolic of the "density" of the knights' understanding. I grew up on the purity and heroism of Galahad but after reading our selection for today, Galahad is almost a comic figure the way he gallops on and off the stage of the quest set before us. He treats Percival pretty shabily which of course is why the latter suffers (however, it has been ordained as the good old man in the white-silk-covered ship announces) and Galahad is only serving the interests of the Lord.

If Galahad is connected to the Fisher Kings, is he not then a cousin of Percival's? However, there is absolutely no reference to the relationship. Another thing which disturbs me greatly is that the queen and Bors and Lionel claim that Lancelot had been tricked into impregnating the Fisher King's daughter. Are the Fisher Kings the descendants of Joseph? If they are, then how could they trick Lancelot so ignobly? Just because the greatest and purest of knights must be descended from a grat knight and a pure woman?

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Pursuit/Achievement/Decline

Putting aside the things that bothered me in The Quest of the Holy Grail (almost everything), I've been trying to figure out how it fits into the progression of literature we've seen so far. Last week in class I brought up the idea of knights in stasis or decline, something that really interests me, although it was a bit of a stretch to call Gawain a full knight in decline in Chretien's Perceval. I think, though, that the Quest can be read as the first story of achievement,rather than just pursuit, and the first (or second) glimpse at what comes after achievement. The main characters in our first couple of texts (Lanval and Culhwch) were in pursuit of personal glory and specific women. We followed their stories up until we knew they had achieved what they wanted, but didn't see anything past achievement - it was essentially "they lived happily ever after." Arthur and the other kings in Geoffrey's History were in pursuit of, again, glory and power, which they won but had to fight to keep, eventually lost, and the cycle started over again - so there was no after, because there was no real end to their struggle. In Chretien's romances, the knights achieve certain personal goals (again, usually women), but there is a sense of mystery, magic and the unconquerable in their world, which culminates in their collective failure to get the grail (at least as far as Chretien wrote, and he left Perceval hanging out in the woods with a hermit and no plans to return to the quest). In The Quest, for the first time, the ultimate goal, the grail, is achieved, the magic and marvels end forever, and there is nothing left for Galahad to do but die. He has no decline, but dies at the height of his achievement. How do we move on from here? It seems like as the texts we read progress historically, they also progress in the development of knights' relationships to the quests they are on. I'm interested to read or re-read the next few texts to see if and how they treat knights who are coming down from, rather than pursuing, victory.

A Complicated Lineage

I've been puzzling over Galahad's lineage. On Grail 33 Bors is convinced Galahad is the son of "the Fisher King's beautiful daughter." This is reinforced by Galahad's brief mention of his relationship to the Fisher King on Grail 37: "'...my uncle, King Pelles, and my grandsire, the Rich Fisher King.'" Again on Grail 39 Gwenivere is convinced that Galahad is "the son born to Lancelot by the daughter of the Rich Fisher King." All of this becomes very complex, though, when on Grail 46 Galahad convinces "the queen that he [is] the son of Lancelot and of King Pelles' daughter." Wait. I thought Pelles was his uncle. And his grandfather isn't Pelles, but the Rich Fisher King, who, if we give any credence to Grail 37, is the father of Pelles. Somewhere the two have become conflated. And I've become confused. Has anyone else?

This is all the more complex when one considers Galahad's relationship to Joseph of Arimathea. Grail 37 alludes to Galahad as "he who stems from the noble house of King David and the lineage of Joseph of Arimathea," but Grail 60 mentions Galahad as "the last of Nascien's line." Curious. Because Nascien and Joseph aren't related. Nascien is brother to Mordrain (Evalach of Sarras, post-his-baptism), and according to Grail 58-59 Joseph is simply the Christian who happened into Sarras and proclaimed the evangelion. In other words, Joseph and his son Josephus aren't blood relatives of Galahad.

So there are a couple of stunted branches in Galahad's family tree. Anyone have any idea how these could be ironed out?

Perceval's Grail Quest

Having given some more thought to the notion of the good knight, and the unrepentant Perceval, I am interested to try a new reading of the ending of the Perceval story. We entertained the notion that Perceval was the fallen knight, of sorts, beyond help and now completely out of the action because of the nature of his leaving the tale (to learn repentance with his monkly uncle), while Gawain continues on the quest to clear his name and find the bleeding lance. What if Perceval is not out of action, but on his way to understanding the nature of the Lance itself. It was his ignorance of it that led him to be considered so very unlucky, for not having asked after either grail, or lance, and consequently for not having been able to help the crippled Fisher King. There is an emphasis on helping others, on ones actions as affects others outside of oneself in Arthur, but I can't help but return to just how stupid Perceval was. His tale was one of slow, reluctant, often misguided attempts to learn how it was to be a knight and a gentleman, and given his knowledge of Christianity, it seems also that it is his attempt to learn to be Christian. I am willing to say that Perceval is on his own grail quest, through the learning of repentance and a knowledge of Christ's sacrifice that goes beyond the knightly one. Knights kill, and knights go to church, but they are hardly good Christians for this, while Perceval's uncle most certainly is. What if the strange interpenetration of the deeply religious into the growth of the knightly being is itself a way to claim that Perceval is finally learning of the bleeding lance, and the grail, through personal repentance and religious instruction?

This feels like a bit of a stretch for me, but I also like any story that deals with reflective spiritual growth, so I'm willing to push this farther. Any thoughts?

Monday, October 5, 2009

What's in a Name?

Professor Wenthe told us last week that we would see a lot more on the importance of concealing and revealing names in Perceval, and I was definitely not disappointed. This romance is bursting at the seams with the idea of the importance and power of names and their relationship to identity. Knowing someone's name seems to signify knowing a lot more about them.

As readers, we don't know Perceval's name for as long as he doesn't know it: about 45 pages or 3500 lines. He is referred to as "the boy" or "the young knight" until he guesses and reveals his name: "And the youth, who did not know his name, guessed and said he was called Perceval the Welshman. But although he did not know if that were true or not, he spoke the truth without knowing it." (What?! This is pretty wild.) Chretien doesn't explain how this happened, but his name seems like almost a password that allows him to find out more about himself. First, he finds out from his cousin that his mother has died, and later, from the priest in the woods about his family and his lineage. He did not have access to any of this information before he guessed his name.

When Gawain and Perceval meet and introduce themselves, I find it very telling that Gawain says "Sir, know truly that at my baptism I was named Gawain," indicating that there is a power to someone's true name, rather than a nickname or assumed name - it is a signifier of identity in a much more concrete way than we think of it now. Gawain later tells Tiebaut, "I have never hidden my name anywhere it was asked, but I've never given it unless I was first asked for it."

So it's clear that names hold some sort of power, but we're not really told what that power is. There seem to be both magical and practical reasons for concealing and revealing one's name in this romance. When Perceval confesses to the priest in the woods and learns a prayer that contains all the names of God, he is told not to say them out loud. The editor's note here tells us that these names were invoked for magical as well as religious purposes, so we can guess that saying their own names out loud may have held some sort of magical power for knights. The practical side to this withholding comes through in Gawain's telling the queen at the Castle of Marvels not to ask him name for seven days. He does not yet know that she is his mother (or his grandmother; I'm not sure which queen is speaking here), and this serves to conceal his identity until he knows and can reveal it in a way that he chooses. Unfortunately, we never get to see how this turns out.

Arthur Himself

Once again we see a different side to Arthur. He is very different from the "Yvain" Arthur who claims to follow the laws of the land and can make arbitrary pronouncements. Also, the "Lanval" Arthur is full if anger but refrains taking "revenge." I remember being shocked by Arthur's indifference to the plight of his queen in "Lancelot" when he makes no move to stop or arrest Meleagant for issuing his challenge to the "Great King Arthur." Instead he is so worried about Kay and runs to the same queen he cannot defend, to ask her aid in persuading Kay to change his mind. In the Percival story Arthur sits brooding when the original Red Knight snatched his gold cup from him in the middle of court, spilling wine on his queen! Here it seems Arthur is more worried about his queen's anger.

It appears that this is Chretien's way of glamorizing his chosen heroes as men of valor and "knights."

Women and More Women

Reading our final Chretien story, "The Story of the Grail," I am wondering about Chretien's women. Is Chretien portraying French noblewomen in the 12th century, or are these idealized women who do not really exist in Chretien's environment. I am thinking about Marie of Champagne and her mother Eleanor. Were these, descendants of William of Normandy, and wives of kings, women of intelligence and extraordinary power? In our tale for today, we see Arthur's mother who is strong and wise (Eleanor?) and powerful.

Another point which I think we have referred to before, is the fact that in the 12th century, or the supposed 6th century, women could run around alone without fear of attack as we see in "Yvain" as well as in the Lancelot story and in the Percival story. There is apparently strict punishment for rapists as they are not courtly. Going back to what Amanda said and what Duggan writes, public misdeeds are shameful deeds resulting in "honte" for the doer of the deed.

When Percival first comes out into the world he doesnt really feel "honte" as he is a boorish Welshman who has not been acculturated into the knightly milieu. As a result, he is guilty of mistreating or forcing his attentions on the lovely lady he meets. One wonders whether he would have done a further uncourtly thing had not his mother told him there were limits to what he could do with the maidens he met. I am not sure whether his mother advised he should forcibly take the ring and alms purse from the maidens, or did she mean only if the maiden wished it? There are parts of the story that suggest that Chretien should have edited his work. Perhaps there was no such concept and we have to deal with the ambiguities and discrepancies which are apparent to us as we are not auditory listeners, but readers.

This tale is populated with beautiful ladies, one of whom doesnt mind entering a knight's room, albeit her guest, and getting into his bed in order to have him protect her castle and lands. Also so many of the ladies are roaming around the countryside with their self-identified "lovers." How does this fit in with the environment of the time and St. Paul's injunctions?

Saturday, October 3, 2009

The Cart: conscience objectified

I was very glad Amanda did her presentation on shame and also Dr. Wenthe’s clarification: Lancelot felt no SHAME stepping into the cart, he felt GUILT for hesitating to climb on.
Like Natalia, I was very conscious of the protagonists’ lack of remorse, both in Cliges and Lancelot. It was comical to see Lancelot going into a trance (that’s why I put hypnotic spirals in my handouts).
But I would like to point out that even if they, Guinevere and Lancelot, were out of touch with reality and in touch with it just enough to worry if they were found out or would be looked upon “badly”, Chretien de Troyes placed constant EXTERNAL reminders (or commentary) of the ‘disgracefulness’ of their encounters, sort of like surrogate consciences. These reminders were in the form of the Cart and the frequent reference to it, and statements the protagonists and other characters would make that were directed at another thing but alluded to the G&L affair.
The obvious one, the Cart, a symbol of public shame for society in general, is embraced by Lancelot --same as jumping into bed with Guinevere-- by her decree and it becomes no longer a symbol for criminals' shame, but for lovers' absent shame - it’s poetic literally and figuratively. The Cart becomes the Bed. (Of course, he doesn’t hesitate when it’s the actual bed). And then the fact that Lancelot’s cart experience was peppered throughout the narrative seemed like it had become their absent conscience (one soul, one absent conscience?). Their absent conscience was now a tangible object, no longer existing as internal feeling, but referred to through language by strangers, society in general. The community, unknowingly, make the affair EXIST by naming/referring to it, the Cart. People are unknowingly talking in a sort of code and, unknowingly, aiding the lovers (‘clever maiden’ et al.)
We have to go back to the first page of Erec and Enide, when Chretien talks about teaching. “…it is reasonable for everyone to think and strive in every way to speak well and to teach well…. A man does not act intelligently if he does not give free rein to his knowledge for as long as God gives him the grace to do so”. Chretien is teaching his readers. He supposedly has a clerc -an educated, clergy-person- finishing this story.

The breakdown:
• About holding the queen hostage, King Bademagu to Meleagant: “It is a sin to keep something to which one has no right”. (250). Who is really taking what is not his?
• Lancelot has stopped fighting by request of Queen, who is voyeuristically and sadistically watching, and Melegeant keeps striking him. “Beside himself with shame, Meleagant then said to the king: ‘You must be blind! I don´t think you can see a thing! Anyone who doubts that I have the better of him is blind!’ (254). Everyone is blind, not just Meleagant, and is Meleagant feeling Lancelot’s shame? Because he also thinks he’s winning! How odd.
• Guinevere’s monologue when she learns there’s a rumor Lancelot has been killed after she snubbed him for hesitating with cart. She laments and thinks the snub is “a mortal blow”, and considers that to be “the sin”, not cheating on her husband (259). When did snubbing become a sin?
• Lancelot laments in monologue after his suicide attempt was thwarted: “She has behaved like those who know nothing of Love and who rinse honor in shame. Yet those who dampen honor with shame do not wash it, but soil it. Those who condemn lovers know nothing of love. There is no doubt that he who obeys Love´s command is uplifted, and all should be forgiven him”. (261) Can you really be uplifted while you are soiled, Lancelot?
• Lancelot after arranging tryst: “I’ll do everything possible to ensure no one will observe my coming, who might think evil of it or speak badly of us”. (263) If all’s good why use the word ‘evil’, Lancelot? A glimmer of conscience.
• Meleagant, after he accuses Guinevere of sleeping with Kay: “It’s certainly true that a man is a fool to take pains to watch over a woman. – all his efforts are wasted”. (265) Arthur is no fool – he never watched his woman!
• Bademagu says to Guinevere, after Meleagant accuses her of cheating with Kay: “You are in a terrible plight”. He has no idea.
• Other little glimmers of conscience in G&L, when Guinevere tells Lancelot Meleagant has accused her of “a disgraceful act” (267); and when Lancelot says “God will show his righteousness by taking vengeance on whichever of us has lied”.

Cliges has a bit of this, too. But it’s not as overt, I think. I love it that Fenice quotes St. Paul to justify her false death plan: “If you cannot remain pure, Saint Paul teaches you to conduct yourself with discretion, so that no one can criticize, blame, or reproach you. It is best to silence an evil tongue, and if you’ve no objection, I believe I know a way to do so”. (188)

Rocio's Courtly Love Presentation Epilogue

I would like to take up my oral —now virtual— presentation from the point where I rushed through -- if I may and it please my fellow bloggers -- and I apologize for going over the time limit, Dr. Wenthe.

Could there have been the possibility of a court of adulterous love at that time? What was going on at the time with regards to women, the literature read, the Church, etc. This was relevant, I think, but too broad a question to answer but here is my brief, incomplete attempt:

• “Women were assumed to be inherently inferior to men and properly guided by men…”; “Wives had to balance carefully their influence over their husbands: moving men towards wise decisions, while not making decisions themselves...”; “An ideal wife spoke publicly through her husband or spoke not at all” (Judith Bennet, Companion to Britain in the later Middle Ages).
• “Most medieval literature was intended to reinforce the status quo” (SH Rigby/ Comp. to Britain in the later Middle Ages)…Now I don’t think this is quite right but this was a quote I pulled after skimming this article at last minute, so this is something that needs further research because what we have been reading is quite provocative...
• It was a time when the Church was defining what were grounds for annulment, marriage practices [were you married if you consummated or if you took vows?] Tasker says Chretien as all medieval authors wanted to instruct, and he wanted to engage his readers in a process of reflection. Public opinion was against marriage of adulterers, a council said they could marry after making penance, and had to be innocent of the husband’s death, among other things. (Joan Tasker Grimbert)
• Courtly romances reflect fantasies of the aristocracy because reality was very different, stricter. Yes, noblemen had more sexual freedom than noblewomen, but Church set strict limits even on marital sex. Husbands, especially royal ones, were very unhappy if their estate passed on to children who were not his, so punishment for adultery was very severe. When Phillip of Flanders (contemporary of Marie de Champagne) caught his wife Isabelle cheating on him he drowned the man in a sewer (or was he beaten to death? I read in another book he was beaten). (Sarah Kay)
So…Donaldson logically says you cannot define courtly love based on all the literature of the Middle Ages and there’s not enough good historical information about medieval daily life, Sarah Kay says the literature was not really a reflection of the reality, and Capellanus’ manual was erroneously seen as historical or sociological text for a very long time.
If the information we do have says reality was very strict, why would Marie commission Chretien and Capellanus to write these romances and manual, respectively? Benton says Marie´s husband, Henri, wouldn’t have let her get away with it (=commissioning Knight of the Cart and being quoted in Capellanus’ manual as saying such immoral judgments), so Joseph Duggan says Marie probably commissioned Lancelot after 1181 the year her husband died, and that’s why the manual was written in 1185. Both Phillip of Flanders (yes, the same one that drowned the other guy) and Marie became widowed almost at the same time, and between 1182 and 1183 Phillip wanted to marry Marie, but he suddenly stopped pursuing her and married a Portuguese princess instead. Had Phillip read the manual she commissioned and did that change his mind? Did Marie have this 'other side' of her personality he did not like? Maybe she wrote the manual, maybe she was the lais-writing Marie de France, after all. Who would have access to all those noblewomen quoted in the manual? How close were Chretien and Marie? Karl Uitti is very suggestive in his 1997 essay and supports Dr. Wenthe’s comment of Chretien’s serious investment in The Knight of the Cart (Lancelot) (as opposed to writing under duress):
Without belaboring the point, we might note the parallelism between Chrétien's avowed painne et antancion in the clerkly service of his Lady, Countess Marie, and the trials and determination evinced by the chivalric Lancelot in his knightly devotion to Queen Guenevere. A certain equivalence is adumbrated between clerkly service (clergie) and chevalerie, both placed, so to speak, at the feet of an admirable and fully meritorious Lady. The effect in both cases is hyperbolic, giving a somewhat humorous cast to the romance, which, however, does not really counter the real seriousness and devotion with which the two ladies are being served. Hyperbole exists alongside authentic devotion and, with Chrétien's artistry, is made to support it, not detract from it. (The Charrette Project)

(Painne et antancion = diligence and intellectual capacity)

I’m thinking Uitti was on to something. There’s a mirror there, somewhere. Sorry, if I end this post so speculatively. I will take up the Cart in another post.

And the handout with the map, it was meant – and now in retrospect this looks very silly— but I wanted you to scribble arrows, according to the list next to the map because I wanted you to trace the route of the (courtly) love concept as it evolved over time according to Irving Singer. It is chronological but without dates, if that makes sense, it starts with Spain (not shown obviously but I trust your geographical sense) in descending order, etc.

And here are details of Irving Singer’s book which really made me want to know more about the medieval mind.

Singer, Irving. The Nature of Love. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984

Thursday, October 1, 2009

A Neo-Tristan

In “Cliges,” Chretien de Troyes refers to the legend of Tristan and Iseult several times, usually with revulsion at Iseult’s inappropriate, unchaste behavior and the dishonorable nature of her love with Tristan.

Fenice tells her nurse:

“I’d rather be torn limb from limb than have our love remembered like that of Tristan and Isolde, which has become a source of mockery and makes me ashamed to talk of it. I could never agree to lead the life Isolde led. Love was greatly abased in her, for her heart was given entirely to one man, but her body was shared by two; so she spent all her life without refusing either” (161).

And, Fenice tells Cliges:

“If I love you and you love me, you will never be called Tristan nor I Isolde, which would suggest that our love was not honorable” (187).

In the notes to “Cliges,” translators William Kibler and Carleton Carroll note that the references to Tristan and Isolde in this story have led many critics to read the story “as an ‘anti-Tristan,’ or as a recasting of the Tristan story in a comic mode” (509).

How we read “Cliges” in reference to the story of Tristan and Isolde has implications for our understanding of Troyes’s attitude towards love and the proper forms in which it should appear or its victims behave. If we read “Cliges” as an ‘anti-Tristan,’ this would lead us to believe Troyes is offering an idealized version of how Tristan and Isolde should have behaved, submitting Cliges and Fenice as models of how to properly attain their loved one. After all, their tale ends happily ever after, which would imply they did the right thing, doesn’t it?

Not quite so. As we’ve seen in other Troyes tales, miscreants are not always punished. In “The Knight With the Lion,” the damsel serving the lady who aids Yvain lies to her mistress about the ointment, claiming that she lost the box in a stream while crossing a bridge (334). Her lady is angry, but pardons the damsel. Therefore, we can’t expect Troyes to, as many other writers are prone to doing, enforce justice upon those characters who perform moral errors. We can reasonably expect that Cliges and Fenice could be in the wrong and get off scot-free — although Fenice doesn’t quite get off without a scratch, literally.

Furthermore, reading “Cliges” as an ‘anti-Tristan’ doesn’t explain the severity of Fenice’s abuse at the hands of the three doctors, nor is this reading supported by Troyes’s conclusion to the story, in which he references subsequent empresses locked up by their husbands.

Robert Levine is one scholar and critic who expresses skepticism about reading “Cliges” as ‘anti-Tristan.’ In his essay, “Repression in ‘Cliges,’” available on JSTOR, Levine suggests, rather, that we read ‘Cliges’ as a ‘neo-Tristan,’ a “new version of the legend … [in which] Chretien seems to have attempted to moralize the Tristan-story” (210). His essay focuses on a Freudian analysis of the highly sexualized material in the tale, of which I’ll offer a little taste here:

The story “includes the flagellation of a naked heroine, mock necrophilia, displaced incest with fantasies of the impotence of the father-figure, symbolic castration of a voyeur, urogenital fascination, and some mild hair-fetichism” (Levine 209).

That aside, I won’t go into further detail, but a particular claim by Levine stands out and is relevant to a reading of “Cliges” as ‘neo-Tristan’: “Cliges is, at least, a strange poem whose peculiar incidents and shifts of tone can only partially be accounted for by considering the poem a brave attempt to idealize vulgar material” (Levine 209).

Essentially, one could argue that the elements of “Cliges” that Levine views as peculiar stem from Troyes’s dislike of the tale he’s allegedly repeating from another book. Troyes views his story as not a response to the Tristan story, with a moralizing influence, but as a new, twisted version that is just as morally repugnant. This reading is driven home by Fenice’s extreme punishment by the doctors, Cliges’s seemingly senseless punishment of Bertrand, and Troyes’s aside at the conclusion of the story.

In this aside, particularly, Troyes delineates the lasting consequences of Cliges and Fenice’s behavior for subsequent generations, as “every empress, whoever she is and regardless of her riches and nobility, is kept like a prisoner in Constantinople, for the emperor does not trust her when he recalls the story of Fenice” (205). Cliges and Fenice may have lived happily ever after, but every empress after Fenice suffers for her pseudo-Isolde-like conduct.

Thus, Troyes offers a new Tristan by punishing not the miscreants themselves, as Tristan and Isolde were punished — limiting the implications of their behavior to their lifetimes — but rather the heirs of Fenice’s legacy, extending the impact through future generations. Troyes shows unchaste, improper expressions of love as potentially adversely affecting others, usually innocents, long beyond the lovers’ lifetime, suggesting that other lovers had, indeed, better be very careful about how they go about loving.

Levine, Robert. “Repression in ‘Cliges.’” SubStance, Vol. 5, No. 15, Socio-Criticism. University of Wisconsin Press, 1976. 209-221.