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)
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Nice points, Rocio. In particular, I was struck by the passage:
ReplyDelete"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)
When Amanda gave her presentation, we talked about how shame operates out of a communal compact--that is, the unspoken and spoken behavioral conventions of a group. While Guinevere and Lancelot definitely transgress the bounds of the greater Arthurian court, they do not transgress the compact established between themselves. In a sense, they have created their own group.
If moral laws are contingent upon the people who establish and agree to them, then Lancelot acts properly when he jumps on the cart. This is why he does not feel the shame we would expect. The only shame he does feel, results from his hesitation to jump into the cart; and this stems from the idea that he is not acting morally within the conventions he and Guinevere have set. Lancelot is not sinning, because he is simply following "Love's command."
I think it's interesting to look at the intersection of these separate compacts and the tensions which result. What does Chretien achieve by having these two, basically separate, communities in tension? Why does Lancelot and Guinevere's compact supersede that of Arthur's court?