It's Times Like This I Need To Watch Mulan And Remind Myself What A Badass Woman Looks Like

I would just like to start off this blog post by expressing how frustrated I am with these readings. I genuinely felt, after finishing all three readings, that at least one character in each story had irritated me (which I also think is a good thing…I mean imagine if we were reading something boring). AND then I got to reading about Erec and Enide in The Complete Romances of Chretien de Troyes. When I first started reading I absolutely loved it because here was a guy who fell in a love with a girl, not only because was is beautiful but also because she is intelligent, and to top all of that off, she is not wealthy either. However, once I continued reading I got more and more frustrated with how Erec treats Enide. He is endlessly controlling of her when he feels like his manhood is threatened and it irritates me to no end. Nearly halfway through the reading on page 36 Erec says to Enide, “’What! What have you said?’ Erec exclaimed. ‘You have too little respect for me now. I gave you a command, forbidding you to speak. How very bold of you to disobey! This time you shall be pardoned, but should this happen again, you will not be forgiven.’” What is the point of being that controlling? Erec is supposed to be the most perfect, most humble knight in all the land, or at least he was given enough praises saying so. If they are true why is he being so rude to his lover? The power trip he holds over her is ridiculous. (Even though she defies him time and time again by speaking out which I love).

In addition what about La Fresne?! We did not get to talk about La Fresne that much in class but this was actually the story that frustrated me the most because the maiden in the story is so good natured. Throughout the whole Lais I was rooting for her because she was abandoned by her awful mother, and then when she finally got the attention of the heroic man, he abandoned her because the other knights did not think she was of noble birth. If the “hero” of the story had really loved her like he said he did, there is no way he would have tried to be married to the (unknown) sister of the first maiden. Then, by the end of the story, when it is found out that the original girl is in fact of a noble birth, he calls off the engagement and marries her instead. The feminist in me leapt up at this point and said, “WHAT?! First he abandons you and you take it because you are just that nice, AND then when he figures out that you are in fact good enough for him…he takes you back and there are no complaints at all?!” Yeah I was very incensed about this.

 

Transitioning off of that frustration, I would like to smoothly (or not so smoothly) head into my potential topic for this upcoming essay and the frustration I am going to use to build it. You know how Dr. MB had us pick from one the topics from the board last class? Well I picked gender and power and I was thinking of using some of stories (I have not decided which ones) from The Lais of Marie de France, as well as some of the laws from courtly love and the story of Eric and Enide to demonstrate that the lack of power that women had in this time frame.

 

 

Fiction & the Status Quo

As we consider Capellanus' Art of Courtly Love, it's important to remember that the kind of love he's describing is one that exists in fiction and not so much in reality. Whether it was written as a satire that mocks the conventions of courtly love or a serious discussion of what makes the ideal fictional love, it's definitely focused on literature and not on the real world.

And when you're diving into a work of literature, I think the most important question to ask is always, "what does this text's audience 'gets' from this?" Why is/was it appealing to a particular group of people? How does it enforce or challenge the status quo? What does it make people think about? Does it encourage them to make their own lives better or simply allow them a bit of "escape" from a lousy lot in life?

We can't always know what an author intended to achieve with a particular work (in fact, I usually avoid spending too much time thinking about that, so I'm not too fussed about whether Capellanus is satirizing or not), but if something has survived and continued to be circulated a few hundred years later, it's safe to say that it meant something to the people who read and enjoyed it. We don't tend to save the stuff that's not important to us (well, unless we are crazy hoarders and then all bets are off).

As I mentioned in class last Thursday, we need to move past the initial reaction of "I get this - I can relate to this" and try to understand the parts that seem inexplicable or just plain weird to us. And there's plenty of weirdness to go around here, right?

I'm pleased to see that the issue of love between people of the same sex has come up in several blog posts thus far - it's an important human rights issue in our own time and place and so we ought to give it our consideration. So how do we cope with the fact that this form of love is excluded by Capellanus? 

For many reasons, we can't simply say, "well, this is the past and the past was ignorant and judgy." Sexual orientation as a marker of personal identity is a modern concept. Sex between people of the same sex certainly happened, but it wasn't a matter of seeing oneself as "homosexual" or "heterosexual" or anywhere else on that spectrum. Love between men was celebrated in the ancient world. And it was understood that men could develop close bonds with other men and women could develop close bonds with other women. 

So why exclude it here? There are lots of possibilities, but here's one. This is about giving women a bit of power and a chance to be involved in a "man's world." It's about saying that even though women and men are different in lots of ways, it doesn't prevent them from developing a close and loving relationship with one another. When most marriages were matters of practicality or politics, the idea of romantic love between men and women is actually a pretty radical and unexpected notion. Women like Marie de Champagne, who was Chretien de Troyes' patron, were left alone for years at a time to govern their husbands' lands when said husbands were away on pilgrimage or crusade. But they were not always accorded the respect of being treated as an equal, as someone with rights, as someone with whom a man should even bother to have a serious conversation with.

Then what about excluding blind people? (As someone with truly horrific vision who started wearing glasses at age 2 and contacts at age 3, I bristle at this one myself - I certainly would have been labeled as "blind" in the 12th century!) What reasons can you come up with, other than an assumption that love is a shallow or wholly physical thing? 

There are no "right" or "wrong" answers here. (Well, OK, there are some wrong answers, but all reasonable hypotheses are welcome!) I encourage you to think about it and to suggest an answer in Thursday's class. Or if you aren't perplexed by this issue, then come up with an answer to another question you were left with as you read through Capellanus. And please continue to challenge yourself in this way as we tackle each of our readings this semester.

Courtly Love is Rage Inducing

No, but seriously, what the hell is wrong with these people?

Okay, okay. Maybe I shouldn't judge a bunch of dead people. It's not like it's going to change anything now. So, to really start out I should give Courtly Love some props. One, women were backing this movement and that's pretty freakin' awesome. To be able to commission what you want to see is rad as hell. I mean, we can do it all we want now with fic-prompts and artist commission drives online but I'm sure back then it wasn't one misspelled message away.  To be fair, these were wealthy women who could afford to sit around and read and bullshit rules for lower society to follow.. but its not nothing.

Another thing that is pretty bitchin' is the whole notion of defining and understanding love. It's a very scientific approach to an intensely emotional...thingy so I appreciate the desire for grounding. I guess it could be argued that it takes some of the romance and magic out of love but I say Bah to that. dissect it, poke it, get to the core of it, or as the Chaplain would say, "meditate"in it.

Ok, now onto why I actually really, strongly dislike the notion of courtly love.

 There is nothing mutual about anything that is going on in the rules of courtly love. Like, the woman could be anything else in the world and it wouldn't make a damn difference. She could be a freaking dining room chairs and there'd be no change because it's all about the man. And that isn't even really why it bugs me, it's just I can't understand how you're supposed to love someone but spending too much time with them could dampen that love...or that true love breaks all previous engagements and everyone is relatively cool with it. The man in love seems to be able to love without consequence while the world is shitting itself around him.

Stop, I can hear you saying, "But, Iris! He totally suffers. Didn't you read the very definition of Love? You dumbass, it says it right there that it's an inborn suffering."

That noise don't fly with me. So he has to get a bit of insomnia, lose his appetite, and think about his lady love all the time. 

Guess what the lady has to do? WHO THE HELL KNOWS BECAUSE THIS SURE AS SHIT AIN'T ABOUT HER!

All she has to do is be perceived as pretty by some guy who isn't old, young, blind, or horny. 

UNLESS, WOOO BOY HOWDY, UNLESS SHE IS A PEASANT. THEN, YOU CAN JUST RAPE HER BECAUSE SHES TOO DUMB AND TOO POOR TO KNOW WHEN WOOING IS HAPPENING!!!!!!

Okay, I'm calm. Bringing it down.

Don't mistake my rage for disrespect. I'm grateful that this has led to modern day romance novels because I soak that shit up like butter. But there is at least a teaspoon of personality in the characters. (GASP! BRAIN BLAST! Maybe it's supposed to be like a choose your own adventure book where you pretend to be the lady...hmmm.)

Graaah, There are so many other things I could yell about. For now,