Frontseat-driving the Plot From Horseback

It’s been interesting to see that the strain possible in relationships was just as applicable during the Middle Ages as it is today. We’ve got two lovebirds who are positively infatuated with each other (and we all know at least one couple that’s like that). As per the norm, their love quickly enters the deadly “Honeymoon Phase,” where the relationships basically end up alienating everyone around them; however, unlike in reality, once Erec alienates his equivalent of a modern squad, Enide tries to convince him that he’s being dishonorable.

Probably exactly what the other knights felt.

The resulting struggle and the events leading up to it are perfect examples of how both characters drive the plot. Erec is the prime mover during the first part of the story, doing combat with the rude knight over who has the fairest maiden. Enide soon joins him in equal importance, since she is the maiden who Erec is trying to defend. Importantly, he sees Enide praying, and “his strength [increases]” (de Troyes 12), making his success partly dependent upon her.

           Later, after the marriage scene upon which George R. R. Martin apparently patterned all of his lengthy descriptions, Enide becomes the driver of the plot once she tries to convince Erec to return to his knightly duties, which results in the aforementioned conflict.

Thank heaven you've explained sixteen times what a brocade doublet looks like.

Whereas the narrative's focus follows Erec for much of the story, here it switches to Enide, again making her of equal importance. Of course, Erec worsens things by keeping himself separated from Enide, both physically and emotionally: “And yet I realized how little respect you have for me” (de Troyes 38). This returns him to the forefront as a second driver of the conflict alongside Enide. Finally, Enide’s plans to assassinate him and subsequent rejection of those plans yet again designate her as a crucial character.

            Perhaps the most thought-provoking quality of Erec’s and Enide’s dual importance is what it means for gender roles. In the beginning of the story, Erec derives much of his strength from Enide, which empowers her as a character by giving her power over him. During the later murder plot, Enide controls Erec’s life, literally deciding whether he’ll live or die. If that isn’t a form of empowerment, I don’t know what is. Even if Enide’s power alongside Erec’s can be debated, her power over Chrétien de Troyes' narrative cannot. Because she is so crucial to the plot, she is already empowered in a way that cannot be stripped from her.

            Still, that doesn’t mean the romance is an appeal for women’s empowerment. It’s not a feminist text; it’s not even a proto-feminist text (although now I’m approaching a cultural quagmire I’d rather not enter). However, it’s important to remember that Chrétien wrote in a sexist era, so any points scored in the area of female empowerment shouldn’t be dismissed easily.

            Is Chrétien a table-flipping gender revolutionary? No, but he does seem to recognize that women can be just as important as men.

 

The "adventure" of the Double EE

This was such a great read! The story began quite slowly but eventually caught on quickly. I was actually interested in the characters as I read along, which usually doesn't happen.

First things first, this whole journey of finding his wife all started by Erec getting struck in the face, whipped actually, by a dwarf? What a creative opening. Erec just so happen to come across the most beautiful maiden that nature has ever created. Chretien just so happen to describe her beauty with such emphasis and exaggeration. I didn’t really like how they made a seriously long description about how beautiful she is, but didn’t speak at all about her intelligence or well being. We only knew that she was poor, but beautiful.

http://amandarego.com/2013/12/11/running-in-a-winter-wonderland/
This picture tells the whole story. The reflection and indication about god was spoken throughout. Enide’s beauty is made from nature, which is made from god?

Erec fought greatly to win over the sparrowhawk for his maiden. I thought it was clever that Yder, the knight, and Erec took a break in between the fight. I mean, come on! When does that ever happen? Once Erec defeated him, Yder surrendered to Erec’s words and apologized to the queen. By doing so, he earned himself a spot in the court, how great is that?

Family is significantly important in this story. Enide parent’s cherished her with all their heart. They were a poor family and lost everything they had during the continuous war. Enide’s father expressed her as, “Lovely she is, yet her wisdom far surpasses her beauty. God never made any creature so wise or so noble hearted. When I have my daughter beside me, the whole world is not worth on bread.” (pg.8) I thought this was so cute! Her father’s praise was so genuine and real, we can see how much her parents loved her when she departed with Erec to his country. As well as Erec’s father, King Lac, cried immensely once he decided to departure, for some odd reason.

…Speaking of his unknown sudden departure, why?! Towards the end of the reading, things moved really quickly. So many things were going through my head. Erec and Enide were both equally important in this story. The story started off with Erec’s “adventure” and how he is the most noble and loyal knight in the kingdom. Towards the end of the read, we hear Enide’s story and how is happiness turned into sorrow…quickly. A little conversation won beautiful morning turned into hell. Erec was quick to respond to Enide’s feelings about how he lost his masculinity. His response and action confused me. He was such a noble and loving husband that turned into a jerk, real fast. As I was reading, in the back of my mind I kept thinking if he’s acting this way towards Enide to test her? I feel like this whole disrespecting her thing is a joke, and he wants to see more of Enide, or show her what a real man he is.

Can’t wait to read the rest of the story! It left off at a pretty good interesting note.

Self-Insert and Honor

    Erec and Enide was a fabulous read! A bit dry in some lines, but overall enlightening. I enjoyed the self insertion of the author during a couple points of the story: “I do not know what work they were doing” (pg 6) I don’t know why I gain so much amusement from it…sort of reminds me of Jane Austen...it adds to the bedtime story feel. Perhaps I should get to the point now.

http://cdn.themetapicture.com/media/funny-medieval-knight-DJ-scratching.jpg

    Both the characters of Erec and Enide were equal parts important to this story. I really like how the focus was on both the male and the female rather than one or the other. The whole point of the first half was Erec redeeming himself as a Knight, after being whipped in the face by a dwarf. What a vicious dwarf he was...then the last half of the story was about Enide learning that perhaps she should’ve been more delicate in telling her husband he’s lost his public manliness. Tsk tsk. However, in these areas they both drive the story forward. Without one, there wouldn’t be a plot. They are both instigators in the rising action. As Erec rides to regain his knightly pride, he finds Enide and is able to fight the rude knight Sir Yder. Without a beautiful maiden, Erec would not have been able to fight in the competition(it just so happens he finds the most beautiful maiden). In the second half of the reading without Erec, Enide would not have had anyone to insult. Simple as that.

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     I would like to mention briefly my favorite part of medieval tales such as these:honor. The honor that these knights(both “good” and “bad”) is such a cool aspect. For example, when Yder and Erec were fighting they both agreed “hey man, I’m beat, you’re beat, let’s chill for a mo’” that’s so cool! Then of course Erec got mad and told Yder to get up and finish this, but he let him live so that’s cool too. Another example could be afterwards, when Yder actually rode all the way to the Queen and surrendered himself. For being so honorable, he got a place in court. SWEET! Maybe some might find it lame, but Knights in these tales really cared about their honor as men and as Knights. It’s something I really enjoy.
    There are a lot of interesting aspects of Erec and Enide. I look forward to reading the rest of it for class.

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.

 

 

The Book of Erec?

So I can’t help but to notice that this is written similarly to the Bible.  Now, I tried to do some research on when and what style Bibles were written in 10^th century France, but I found so many different answers (as one often does with a quick Google search) that I did not have much success.  Rather, I was left more confused than anything else.  But I do know that some of the passages in “Enec and Enide” remind me of some excerpts in the book of Genesis in an NIV version of a Bible.  Mainly the lists and the “this is what I’m going to tell you” attitude.  Chrétien says things like “The others I shall name in no particular order because the ranking embarrasses me” (22). One long paragraph is dedicated to naming all the knights at the Round Table.  I know it’s important somehow, but I couldn’t come up with a definitive reason why we need to know the ranks of these barons.  I guessed it was to establish the importance of rankings, but I’m still not sure.  All this did for me was slow down the story and bore me to death.  

The next time he does this he says, “Now listen to me. I am going to tell you who the kings and the counts were” (24).  Then he goes on to ramble FOR AN ENTIRE PAGE about all these kings and counts who have no actual importance to the story, except for emphasizing the importance of Erec’s wedding.  This especially reminds me of the book of Genesis, where it proceeds to go on for pages about the genealogy past Adam and Eve.  Among hundreds of names, you really only hear a handful of them in the rest of the 65 books.  The situation is not so drastic here, but it’s the same idea.  And one reason why I have to admit that I skimmed over a lot of those parts. 

Now, the question that lingers is why establish all this importance if we’re not really meant to care about these people, no matter their rank in Court? Maybe the goal is to elevate Erec? Many times he is held in high regard, such as this:

Such was Erec’s renown that everyone talked of none but him.  There was no man of such noble excellence.  In beauty he resembled Absalom, and in eloquence, Solomon.  He had the pride of a lion.  And in generosity he was the equal of Alexander (29).

Hmm…more biblical references.  I think this would be an interesting thing to examine.  

Distractions de Troyes

     Things escalate at a snail’s pace in this story. Just when the storyline seems to be picking up speed, the narrator slows down by giving us (unnecessary) in-depth descriptions of characters and settings. 

     One example of this distraction (as I will now refer to it), comes on page 6. Instead of simply stating the maiden’s beauty, we are flooded with details of Nature’s efforts to create such an attractive human being. Plenty of people would kill to be told that “never before had such a lovely creature been seen on the face of the earth” (6). I am impressed by the way that the narrator is able to speak so much and so intensely about the beauty of this maiden, yet, I still do not have a clear idea of what she looks like (except, of course, her hair is even brighter than the women in Pantene commercials). 

http://imgkid.com/pantene-hair-commercial.shtml

       What confused me about this maiden’s description, was the end. The narrator focuses solely on the maiden and Nature’s painstaking efforts, but the last sentence of this description focuses on males instead. It seemed odd to me that the narrator praised this maiden’s beauty and wisdom, then decides to compare her to a “mirror” for men to see their beauty in.

      Another distraction appears on page 21, when we are told about Enide’s new cloak. It isn’t simply a nice cloak, it is made of “deep-green silk,” and, “embroidered with little crosses that had been made especially for her.” I think we can all share the jealousy of her wardrobe here.

      Enide, to me, is a very important part of this story. It frustrates me that she is praised mainly for her beauty, and less so for her intelligence, but I am impressed that her knowledge is even mentioned within this text. In fact, there were a lot of differences in this text from the texts we have previously read.

One example comes on page fourteen. Erec states his disgust for violence toward women when he says, “It is disgraceful to strike a woman.” 

      This would be a foreign concept to the writer of “Courtly Love.” We’ve moved quickly from a reading which supports beating wives if they don’t agree with their husbands, to a text that claims the act of hitting women should never be acceptable. It’s crazy how drastically opinions can change over time. In a few years, I’m sure we will be looking back on the standards and beliefs of our society, wondering what the heck we were thinking. 

      Toward the end of the reading, I found that things picked up the pace—rather quickly. One small morning conversation between the couple, and all hell breaks loose. I didn’t expect Erec to act the way he does, and even less so the way he begins to treat Enide. I can’t help but to believe that he is testing her…but for what? She is obviously faithful and fully invested in their relationship. On the other hand, he could be trying to prove his worth as a knight to her. But I wish he would just give up the dramatic act and go home, because I can’t see this ending well.

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