The Good, The Bad, and Gowther

When I heard that the story of Sir Gowther was going to be an interesting one, in the concept of good and evil, I knew I had to really pay attention to the story. There are a lot of things that I can say about this story to make it either seem very interesting, or very annoying. This tale is definitely a "mixed-feelings" piece.

What I found appealing was that Sir Gowther was born of Satan; which, with my lovely history of Greek and Roman mythology, was very exciting. I find tales that involve a higher, or in this case lower, figure to be extremely interesting in all aspects. Readers can understand that the actions of the character aren't truly their faults. Or are they?

Sir Gowther was in a pickle long before he was brought out to this world. Satan gave Gowther the power to know everything in the past, and God gave him the power to know everything that was going to happen in the future. If I had the situation happen to me, the first thing I would probably do is find some medicine, because that sounds like too much information for one brain to handle.

One other thing I liked about this piece was that it was a good transition piece. Throughout this, we see him go from horribly evil to surprisingly good. To having a fetish of raping and killing nuns, as well as nipples, to forgiveness and denying Satan and his work, Sir Gowther should us that anyone can make moral decisions (even with the devil and God being up our asses 24/7). 

The one thing that ticked me off was the idea that he did all these horrible things, and went to the Pope and got forgiveness. For me, even with the devil's actions, I would never thought that was acceptable to gain forgiveness. I can understand asking for forgiveness if you take a loaf of bread, not for raping and killing a copious amount of nuns.

But, hey! If you have the money, anybody can get, "forgiveness." Just remember kids, God still looks at you when you do stupid shit! Have fun with the remainder of your lives!

Sincerely,

Zach!

Repetition

Friends, comrades, fellow students... I think we can all agree that after taking this class, we have a very good, well thought out idea on love. From the first piece we read (Courtly Love from Andres Capellanus) to the most recent piece (Sir Orfeo), we can conclude that the middle ages were a time period full of horny, love-crazy bastards.

However, what I have been noticing in these past two stories, is that the characters and settings are Greek-based. Now, I may be the only person who thinks of this, but love is similar in every time period... except the Greeks and Romans. Those were some crazy people lol (insert emoji here)

Now to the story! I thought of this as a repetitive piece, like the other copious amount of stories we have read. Women gets kidnapped by stranger, guy gets pissed, epic adventure, she gets saved by guy, and they live happily ever after. Half way through, I could come up with the ending in my head, and I was right. As the famous rapper OG Maco would say, "Bitch, you guessed it Hwah, you was right."

What pissed me off the most, and I don't know why, were the fairies. I mean C'MON Man! You would think fairies would be these nice, mystical people who spread happiness with a flick and swish of a wand (Hah! Harry Potter reference). But NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!! These little turds end up kidnapping the queen and many others, and hide them in a castle. When Sir Orfeo is granted access, I was thinking a huge fight was going to happen, not him playing his harp to the fairy king. The more I think about it, however, Sir Orfeo has the talent. As a child, he was given the gift of music, so he can play the hell out of a harp. We could call Sir Orfeo the Eric Clapton of harps.

But, again, after finishing this, I wasn't really pleased. The stories are getting so similar, that I really haven't been hooked by any plot line. If this was Metacritic, I would give this a solid 47 for not being original.

The Overall Concept of Women in the Middle Ages

After getting to read this piece, I came across some overall ideas. First of all, this can be classified as a feminist piece; and, as a overall concept, the story has different viewpoints from some of the other pieces we have read.

When it comes to being a feminist style of writing, readers observe the woman of the court taking a strong role of leadership. As we see the Knight in King Arthur's court, the wife of the King, along with some other ladies of the court, give him the second chance at life. The women inform him of going on this journey for a year, informing us readers that this is going to be another one of those epiphany moments. When I read this, I thought this was way ahead of its time. Chaucer definitely put himself way ahead of any other author of his time, by putting strong, independent female characters as leaders in his novels.

The one thing the really grabbed me in this was the idea that he had to answer the one question all men dread to be asked: What do women want most in this world? Guys, heart to heart moment, we don't even understand what is like to be a woman, let alone what they truly want. We can ask all of the women on this planet, and we still wouldn't know the answer to this Goddamn question. If I were in the Knight's shoes, I would beg for my head to be chopped off, because there is no way in hell I will ever know the answer to this question.

This was definitely a different style read than the other pieces we have read in this class for a lot of reasons, mainly the idea of reading in middle english, and it grabbed my attention right from the beginning. The concept of middle english is much different from today's english, For me, since I didn't obtain the book with middle english in it (amazon didn't have the book mentioned online... my life lol), I had to read this off of the Harvard website. In a couple of words I can describe to you that this was interesting and difficult to read. That's what grabbed me; the idea that I can have so much fun reading a book makes me want to read more and more.

Overall, I thought this was a great read. I read this story before my junior year of high school, and after reading this for a third time, I understand what the story is truly trying to tell me.

A Love/Hate Relationship

After reading, "Cliges," I sorta developed this style of is this a good read, or is this a long, strenuous read.

Within the first couple pages I was instantly hooked, which is a weird feeling, because my relationship with school reads have plummeted since I read Fahrenheit 451 freshmen year of high school.

I loved how committed young Alexander was to be a mature leader for his land, wanting to Serve under King Arthur and his high court.

However, as I continued to read this, we once again come up with the topic of love. I understand that this class is entitled, "Genre Studies: Medieval Romance," but my mind still wants that idea of it being medieval. You know, with the knights and the crusades, slaughter and ravaging every female thing in sight. That's what I would love to see. My mind doesn't grip with the idea that love is apparent in every concept of every human being. In my opinion, some people in this era didn't really give a flying shit (Yes I do understand that shit cannot fly, it's more of an expression.)

The one thing that baffles me the most, is that Brittany suspects Alexander of cheating. Within a blink of an eye, she goes 0-100 real quick, "Oh I love him... Oh I cannot stand the little bastard!!!" As I tell everyone, however, we all know that crazy chick named Brittany.

Overall, fascinating read, too long though, and it never gets to a solid point in my mind.

True Love? OR NAH????

They say love is a topic that many people appreciate, and others can hate until the end days. Love has been existent since the medieval ages. In, “The Lais of Marie de France,” the epic story of Equitan described an epic knight who was pissed the hell off at his lover.

This is what brings up the mighty question, was love in that time period classified as true love? Or even better, do the people of today know the true definition of love? And if so, do they truly follow it?

Oxford English Dictionary defines love as, “A feeling or disposition of deep affection or fondness for someone, typically arising from a recognition of attractive qualities, from natural affinity, or from sympathy and manifesting itself in concern for the other's welfare and pleasure in his or her presence” (Love).

With this as the following, do we actually follow this, or do we go straight to the aux cord, and pull out the iPhone and listen to Jeremiah’s Birthday Sex and get some sweet horny action in!

In today’s world, I believe that we are following the same standards as Equitan did. All we do in this day of age is find the closest person next to us, and go after a quick fuck session. We never go through the styles of love that Nicholas Sparks proclaims in every single one of his books.

The styles of Equitan would leave me to believe that this could leave to domestic violence, brutality, or even death. Just leave it to be foreshadowing to Eminem’s Kim, “Don't you get it, bitch, no one can hear you? Now shut the fuck up and get what's coming to you You were supposed to love me NOW BLEED! BITCH, BLEED! BLEED! BITCH, BLEED! BLEED!”

Overall, love is still something that still boggles my mind. Whether it may be about love preferences, or if it comes to sexual preferences. However, if the any reader follows the ways of the, “mighty,” Equitan, then we will end up seeing more and more baby daddies.