Emaré and The Man of Law's Tale

The story of Emaré and her perilous journeys across the sea caught me incredibly off guard this week and in the best possible way! Even though I never saw it coming, this piece turned out to be my absolute favorite read of the semester thus far and I couldn’t be more thrilled about it!

The main reason for my excitement is due to the fact that my previously unresolved feelings towards the “Castaway Queen romances” (Osborn 128), such as Chaucer’s The Man of Law’s Tale, have become clarified and somewhat elevated with my reading of this version of the story. Before Emaré, I had only encountered this type of tale once, in The Man of Law’s Tale, and even though I generally enjoyed reading the story of Custance, I found myself puzzled when arriving at its conclusion. The highly unrealistic elements of the plot (such as Custance surviving alone in a ship that safely makes it all the way from Northumbria to Rome, for instance) threw my head for a loop and I had a great deal of difficulty in resolving my feelings about them. Was I supposed to believe that something like this actually happened? No, as it is clearly impossible. But then how much of my disbelief should I suspend in order to fully appreciate the story? How much of this tale – if any – did Chaucer’s original audience relate back to real life situations?

The Man of Law's Tale by Anne Anderson

Questions like this prevented me from fully connecting with the story and they continued to rattle around in my head for a long time after I tucked The Man of Law’s Tale away. However very much to my surprise, while reading Emaré this week absolutely none of them resurfaced! Considering the stark similarities between the two tales, I was shocked to see the vast difference in experience that I had while reading. Instead of focusing on the individual events and elements of the plot within Emaré, I realized that, since I already had a general idea of how the story would play out, it was much easier to consider the work as a whole. As such I didn’t stop to ask myself what was going on or if I should believe every little detail. Instead I just went with it, sat back and enjoyed the elements of the tale that I hadn’t found in Chaucer’s version of the story, such as the bejeweled dress.

Having Chaucer’s work sitting in the back of my mind while reading Emaré was a huge advantage and by understanding the type of story that I was confronting (as opposed to when I first read The Man of Law’s Tale and had never experienced that type of story before) I was able to drastically increase my enjoyment of the work.  

Source:

Osborn, Marijane. Nine Medieval Romances of Magic. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview, 2010. Print.

Knightly Taste Aversion … Is There an End in Sight?

The first time I was introduced to Chaucer’s The Knight’s Tale (as I suspect is true for most) was in a high school English class. Even though I have fond, fond memories of the two days I spent watching Heath Ledger parade around a fictional medieval world with perfectly tousled hair and sexy, shiny armor… I can’t remember one interesting piece of information from our class’ actual discussion of the tale itself. The only thing I do remember (save for Heath’s lovely smile) is the lasting sour taste the story of Arcite and Palamon left behind in my mind.

The ‘taste aversion’ to The Knight’s Tale that I began to develop in high school (much to my dismay) only grew stronger over the following years as I subsequently encountered the text again and again. Try as I might to connect with the story, there was always some aspect of it that simply put me off. The most glaring example is of course the character of Emelye, who has basically no say (except for her ability to pray) or choice in the matters that directly affect her life. Although I understand that this is due to the social structure of the medieval world... it is still enraging as a modern female reader to encounter a story where the women are depicted as such. In all reality, this is probably the number one reason why I have such an aversion to the character of the Knight and to his tale (although there are many other reasons as well). Even though I do value the tale a great deal on the whole, the fact remains that I simply do not enjoy reading it. Or at least that was what I thought.

After being faced with the reality of having to read The Knight’s Tale yet again, I decided that, even though I had officially filed the story away into my ‘unpleasant reads’ folder (or to borrow a term from Sherlock and the ancient Greeks, my mind palace), I would try as much as possible to resurrect it and remain open to new insights. Although the tale isn’t my favorite choice, I was determined to find something about it that I had previously overlooked to like. Thankfully, I succeeded.

Although it may seem a bit dark, re-reading the tale and paying closer attention to the prayer’s of Emelye, Palamon and Arcite helped me to better understand (and take a bit of pleasure in) the latter’s death. In previous readings of the tale Arcite’s death puzzled me and I have never quite been able to resolve my feelings about it. Now however, I’m certain that I am able to derive a great deal of satisfaction from it. By praying to Mars and desiring victory in battle above all else (in an attempt to obtain Emelye, who he sees as having to be won by force) instead of putting his love for her first and praying to Venus like Palamon, Arcite looses both his life and his ‘love.’ Palamon on the other hand, eventually wins Emelye’s hand in marriage and even though my somewhat feminist heart is screaming that he is still undeserving of her, I feel much more contented after finishing this latest reading. At least Palamon put love before war. In my book this makes him the lesser of two evils.

Overall even though this tale my not be my personal cup of tea, I am certainly glad that there is a possible end in sight for my ‘taste aversion’ to it. In previous readings I considered Arcite and Palamon to be almost one in the same (perhaps the reason I was so puzzled by why Arcite had to die and not Palamon) but now that I have paid more attention to the subtle differences in their actions it is looking less and less like this is the case. Finding something new to enjoy during this reading of Chaucer’s tale has certainly given me hope for the future (although I don't think I'll be pulling this out of the 'unpleasant reads' folder anytime soon). 

Love the story... but hate how it was told...

After now having read “The Knight of the Cart” in its entirety, I have to admit that the story has certainly grown on me. However with that being said, I also must confess that it took every bit of concentration I had to read until the end.

The main reason I had such a difficult time making my way through this particular tale was in large part due to Chretien’s writing style. Like I mentioned in one of my previous comments, the entire time I was reading I felt like there was a barrier between the story and myself and no matter how hard I tried I could not seem to bypass it. Every time I thought I understood what was going on a new event or twist in the plot would prove me wrong (such as when Lancelot gets “deceived” by the dwarf on pg. 232). Usually I am intrigued by plot twists, as they work to build tension and suspense, but in this case I was simply left confused and wondering what was going on in Chretien’s mind when he wrote this story.

It was quite a challenge for me to follow the main plot of the story all the way through to the end, as I couldn’t quite shake the feeling that what I was reading was simply a bunch of random / invented events all strung together in order to craft a complicated tale. I almost feel as though there were so many things going on that I couldn’t become overly invested in the story itself because I was too busy / distracted by trying to keep all of its parts straight! Now don’t get me wrong, there were definitely a few moments throughout that I did have the pleasure of being able to connect with and enjoy, such as when Meleagant finally met his doom on pg. 256 or when Guinevere had to restrain herself from embracing Lancelot too openly in front of Arthur’s court on pg. 253. However on the whole this story left me feeling very incomplete; as if I even though I had read the entire thing I was still an outsider looking in who didn’t quite get it. (Of course this is true to a certain degree, as I am not the original audience this tale was intended for, yet I believe that there is more to it than that.)

Overall I have come to the conclusion that Chretien’s writing style drastically affected my ability to relate to, enjoy and become invested in his story. Not only was it difficult for me to follow the plot in general thanks to the many twists and turns the tale took before its conclusion, but the questionable intelligence of Chretien’s characters (hello, can we talk about that dwarf / how daft Lancelot is for a moment?!) significantly turned me off thanks to the many distracting questions their decisions raised in my mind. The only character whose actions I never questioned was Meleagant, as it was always very clear to me why he acted the way he did, however in general I often found myself wondering what the hell everyone was thinking. I know that by reading this tale over a few more times its charm would only increase (since I did find it easier to read through the second half than I did the first), yet the overcomplicated and cumbersome style of Chretien’s writing doesn’t make that task seem too appealing…

Descriptions, Descriptions, Excessive Descriptions!

While reading the story of Erec and Enide from The Complete Romances of Chretien de Troyes this week there was one thing that stood out to me above all the rest: the lengthy and often excessively repetitive descriptions! At every turn it seemed that the story’s momentum (which was seriously lacking in the beginning) paused for a moment in order to provide the reader with description after description. This didn’t entirely bother me at first, since I’m typically a huge fan of descriptive imagery and was enjoying the scrumptious visualizations the text was creating in my mind, however, as the story continued to progress I couldn’t seem to shake the feeling that things were getting a bit excessive.

For example, I understood the purpose of the first long passage describing Enide’s intense beauty and the pains Nature took in creating her on pg. 6… but did the text really have to repeat itself over and over again? I mean as if this first passage wasn’t enough, the reader encounters a dozen or so more instances where the story slows to describes Enide’s beauty and list a great number of her many virtues (pg. 20, 21, 22, 31, 42). By the middle of the story / at the point where Enide begins to question her husband about his lack of chivalrous behavior, I found myself beginning to question what these long-winded descriptions were all about.

At first I had just figured there was a lot of detail provided because it made the story more interesting to its original audience; that maybe medieval readers wouldn’t have seen the amount of descriptions as excessive. I considered the fact that while I may have been attempting to read at a rather quick pace, original readers might not have been trying to do the same and that what I saw as an excess of description they might have seen as typical. However, by the midpoint in the reading I began to reconsider.

It was at this point that I began to widen my scope and started taking notice of not just the many examples of long descriptive passages throughout the story, but also of the general theme of excess that persisted throughout. For example, there is an overabundance of characters, places, food, clothes, celebration etc. that becomes all the more noticeable as the reader delves further into the tale. Indeed almost all of the guests in attendance at Erec and Enide’s wedding came in massive parties and brought along hundreds of attendants or horses (pg. 24-25). Again at first I thought that the lengthy descriptions that characterize the text were just included to make it more appealing and interesting, but once I began to notice the many examples of excess I began to wonder if there wasn’t a bigger picture I was missing out on.

After considering the descriptive text and the fact that the majority of it is concerned with detailing examples of excess, I am starting to feel like there is a more significant reason as to why the text is written in such a lengthy way. From the very beginning the reader is cautioned with the proverb: “what you scorn may be worth much more than you think.” Enide learns this quickly when she opens her mouth and changes the relationship between herself and her husband. However, Erec doesn’t appear to have caught on yet as he is not treating Enide’s concern for their lives very respectfully when we leave him in the forest at the conclusion of the reading this week. Overall I am quite ready to move on and finish the rest of this story, if for no other reason than to get some answers about Erec’s character. At this point I am very intrigued and confused by his behavior and am having a super hard time predicting what will come next. Mainly, I’m interested to see if the general theme of excess plays out in whatever events befall Erec and what that would possibly mean for the overall message of the story.

Considering Capellanus

After reading a bit of Capellanus’ The Art of Courtly Love, I’ll have to admit that I am most certainly intrigued…

There wasn’t too much of the text that lost my interest and I was pleasantly surprised to see just how many thought-provoking similarities there were between Capellanus’ definition of love and our modern understanding of the term. Going into the reading this week with the expectation of seeing many stark differences was a great outlook to have as it allowed me to take better notice of the similarities that I honestly wasn’t expecting to find. For instance, the notion that “the easy attainment of love makes it of little value [while] difficulty of attainment makes it prized,” (Capellanus) is clearly something that we still witness / value in our society today. Especially speaking as a female, there have been countless times throughout my life that the term “playing hard to get” has come up in some sort of context or another (and I say especially speaking as a female because – at least from my perspective – this term is usually reserved for / said in reference to a woman). The notion that a lover’s value (specifically a woman’s) increases alongside the level of difficulty it takes to win their affection, a notion that is still very much alive and well today, comes directly from the concept of courtly love.

Indeed looking back at the readings for this week it becomes clear that the ideals of the medieval period still play an incredibly integral role in how our modern society constructs and stereotypes gender roles. For example, the classic 21^st century cliché of a “whipped man” and a “controlling wife” are again direct products of courtly love. The ideal male lover of the medieval age was expected to serve his lady who, as Dr. Thompson points out, was often depicted as “cold and cruel.” This was honestly the part of the reading that stuck out to me the most, as I wasn’t previously aware that our modern concept / stereotype of a subservient or “whipped” male – and by association the “controlling” female - was a product of courtly love (now I know who to blame).

However while I wasn’t expecting to notice so many similarities at the start of my reading this week, I’m certainly glad that I did. These similarities unexpectedly drove me deep into thought and I spent a much longer time than I ever originally intended considering the ways in which our society still reflects the remnants of medieval courtly love as opposed to all the ways in which the two are so starkly different. At first I thought that the differences would be more intriguing; that their examination and consideration would be the best way for me to begin to develop an understanding of courtly love. That clearly wasn’t the case. I actually found it much harder to connect with or relate to the differences. To my surprise it was the similarities between Capellanus’ medieval definition of love and my modern understanding of the term that provided the most useful for consideration.