On the subject of plagiarism, Dr. Heather Mitchell-Buck’s syllabus for Medieval Romance advises: “Not sure what constitutes plagiarism, or how to correctly cite your sources?... Ask me, ASAP.” (3) Marie de France would have been wise to ask Mitchell-Buck’s advice “ASAP” when compiling these Lai. Bisclavret is, be it intentional or coincidental, plagiaristic of the most famous text in the Western World, the only one that most would have access to:
Much of this story is merely a retelling and reframing of the story of Samson and Delilah. The parallels are uncanny-the narrative of the man with some unusual power, pressured by his lover to reveal the secret behind it, only to find himself betrayed. His enemy, informed by his lover, manipulates or otherwise takes advantage of his power to destroy him (or, in this case, curse him to life as a werewolf). With the help of a higher authority of some sort, the man gets revenge and his enemy suffers. It’s important to take note of where these stories differ, however -
The happy ending is what separates Bisclavret from Samson and Delilah’s formula. While Samson finds himself dead, Bisclavret lives to see his revenge be exacted, and the exile of his ex and the knight. This is characteristic, as we discussed in class, as the genre of romance as a whole - the happy ending is crucial to justify the story.
It’s unlikely that Marie, as a literate aristocrat during a time of hegemonic Catholicism, was unfamiliar with the original story. The question then becomes, why? What about this specific story was appealing enough to the reader of the era that Marie thought the romantic play on it would be successful?
The answer apparent to me is one of self-insertion - using the self as a point of comparison for the text. This is a theme that I think will likely be pervasive through many of the texts we study; the role of female characters in the texts will be for the audience of the era to compare themselves and their actions and thus creating an “ideal” of femininity to perform. We touched on this in our class discussion of Lanval: the woman’s role in the story is not as a character in her own right, but as an ideal for the women reading to strive to perform, to be the idealization of beauty to be won by men.
Both the Biblical story and Bisclavret have the same “example” archetype of an evil, scheming woman. Unlike in Lanval, however, the woman here serves as an antithesis of the ideal - to be avoided at all costs. This would appeal to women reading doubly as a model of what not to do and as a point of direct comparison: they could look at the text and say “I am better than this woman,” and feel affirmed. The ultimate ideology at play here is more sinister, as it promotes women reaffirming themselves at the expense of other women and, given the woman’s ultimate drastic consequence, vaguely threatening. This also stands out to me as something that will pervade the texts we will read, as it remains common even in modern capitalist patriarchy (despite being an entirely different beast from feudal patriarchy).
For all her success at appealing to women and the genre of romance, Marie de France should’ve made like an honorable knight and signed the Hood Honor Pledge. Looks like she’ll be getting an
