Marie de France’s Lais, Guigemar and Yonec, are statements about the female condition of the twelfth- and thirteenth-century. In these Lais, the female characters are literally trapped by their jealous husbands and by their unwanted marriages. This jealousy is a tenant of the courtly romances from the time of Marie de France. In Guigemar and Yonec, the women protagonists do not have freedom or voice where their husbands are concerned; however, when the supernatural intervenes and their knights are brought to them, they are given love, a man who listens to their wants and needs, and a chance at freedom. These Lais make use of the tropes of courtly love and marriage, but rebel against them in a quiet and unsuspecting way. By rebelling against the rules of courtly love, Marie de France offers the ‘other-world’ and the supernatural as an appropriation of a future for women that did not yet exist. …show more content…
Once Medieval women entered into marriage, their husbands held the upper hand in the power relationship, both legally and socially. According to Judith Bennet, as quoted in “Runaway Wives: Husband Desertion in Medieval England,” “[m]edieval people thought of conjugality as a hierarchy headed by a husband who not only controlled his wife’s financial assets and public behavior but also freely enforced his will through physical violence” (Butler 337). Both the Lady in Guigemar and the Lady in Yonec are kept prisoner by their jealous husbands because of their beauty and exemplify the amount of control that men had over women of the
In Malory’s famous account of the King Arthur legend, the most notable example of woman as destructive sexual temptation is, of course, Queen Guinevere. Sir Lancelot’s affair wi...
Society often views individuals that do not conform to its expectations as separate from the societal group. The Story of the Marquise-Marquis de Banneville, by Charles Perrault, François-Timoléon de Choisy, and Marie-Jeanne L’Héritier follows two main characters, one of which does not fully conform to binary gender presentation. The Girl with the Golden Eyes, authored by Honoré de Balzac, portrays an “oriental” woman as an object to be purchased and used. In Le Roman de Parthenay Ou Le Roman de Melusine, written by Coudrette, the heroine is a half human, half fairy who holds great power. In this paper, I argue that the majority of biologically female protagonists in these novels exist in-between the expectations society has for them, which
One of the aspects of the Middle Ages which is explored by numerous scholars today is that of the antifeminist stereotypes which pervaded literature and cultural mores during the period. In an era governed by men, the fact that women were treated as inferior is unsurprising; archetypal visions of femininity fit neatly into medieval history. However, most people would like to believe that such pigeonholing has been left in the past, allowing for more liberated times in which women are portrayed realistically and as the equals of men.
Murphy, Michael. "Vows, Boasts, And Taunts, And the Role Of Women In Some Medieval Literature." English Studies; Apr 85, Vol. 66 Issue 2: 105-112. Academic Search Premier. EBSCOhost. Montgomery, AL. 2 FEB 2006
The king had the option to marry whom he wishes, royalty or not, and the wife was at his disposal. The woman did have the option to object to the king’s unfaithful or unruly behavior, yet would most likely the result would not fall in her favor. Gregory of Tours writes of the descendants of Clovis and the marriages of the kings. A common occurrences between the results of the marriages are common among the historical accounts. There is suffering and sadness at the sake of the woman. Gregory of Tours does not paint the place of love as a soft picture, rather one filled with anguish and sadness. Due to the fact that most of the females in the History of the Franks, experience such neglect, the find solemn in jealousy. Their only possibility to feel like they obtain control or power in their relationships is by constantly feeling threatened by another woman. Marie de France’s concept of love in Lais complements the portrayal of love in Gregory Tours’ History of the Franks. Gregory of Tours and Marie de France provide perspectives of the portrayal of the place of love as as an evitable force that binds two individuals together, yet at the cost of suffering and selfishness of
Like the Good Other Woman, the Evil Other Woman often spends much of her life hidden away in the castle, secret room, or whatever, a fact suggesting that even a virtuous woman’s lot is the same she would have merited had she been the worst of criminals. The heroine’s discovery of such Other Women is in the one case an encounter with women’s oppression-their confinement as wives, mothers, and daughters-and in the other with a related repression: the confinement of a Hidden Woman inside those genteel writers and readers who, in the idealization of the heroine’s virtues, displace their own rebellious
The tale of Sleeping Beauty is influenced by oral folklore and various written versions. Today fairytales are told as a domain for the entertainment and teachings of children. In traditional storytelling, peasants transmitted folklore orally around campfires to audiences of mixed ages. However, during the 17th century, peasant tales, such as Sleeping Beauty, were altered by writers like Charles Perrault’s, to appeal to the courts of aristocracy. Thus the characters of Sleeping Beauty adorned a courtly air to appeal to the crown, such as Louis XIV of France. Throughout history, various cultural influences transformed the tale of Sleeping Beauty through the manipulation of various social forces to achieve better entertainment purposes and reflect Christian beliefs and customs. In addition, the moral of the tale conveys a message that women remain passive in hope to marry her true lov...
It is essential to understand that Salon tales are a subset of the fairy tale genre, with the intention of being written for a more intelligent and sophisticated audience. Because the tales reflect the cultural values of the writers and the environment in which they wrote, these stories originate from the Salon writers’ retellings of old folk tales. They share similar themes as the original peasant tales, but are considered a subset of the genre because these Salon tales represent the social values their authors uphold. The bourgeois elements such as valuing appearance, marriage, and magic are more prevalent in Salon tales, and thus, these stories should be read not to gain insight into historical context, but to the 17th century French value system of the Salon writers.
The tales of King Arthur and many of their numerous characters are well known in literature. The Arthurian world is one of the great myths of modern times. Those great pieces of literature have many common themes, one of them being courtly love “L’amour Courtois”. This paper talks of courtly love as seen in King Arthur’s world especially examining “Yvain or the Knight with the Lion” and “Lancelot: or the Knight of the Cart”. Furthermore, one of the goals is to show how that courtly love could be seen in today in our world.
During the Middle Ages, Courtly love was a code which prescribed the conduct between a lady and her lover (Britannica). The relationship of courtly love was very much like the feudal relationship between a knight and his liege. The lover serves his beloved, in the manner a servant would. He owes his devotion and allegiance to her, and she inspires him to perform noble acts of valor (Schwartz). Capellanus writes, in The Art of Courtly Love, “A true lover considers nothing good except what he thinks will please his beloved”. The stories of Marie de France and Chrétien de Troyes illustrate the conventions of courtly love.
Marie de France’s “Lanval” is a Breton lai dominated by themes common to 12th century literature, which through its exploration of love, erotic desire, wealth, gender and community, tells the story of a young knight who finds himself caught between two worlds: his lover’s and his own. Forced to separate these societies by a warning in which his lover states, “do not let any man know about this…you would lose me for good if this love were known” (Lines 145-148), Lanval must keep his love a secret and exist apart from the Arthurian world into which he was born. Consequently, romantic love between Lanval and his fairie queen exists conditionally, that is upon Lanval’s physical and emotional isolation. This restriction suggests that romantic love, as described in terms of erotic desire and physical/emotional devotion throughout “Lanval,” is unsuited for existence in the mundanity of Arthurian society. Therefore, Lanval’s solitude is necessary for his maintaining his relationship with the fairie queen, a fact that suggests the incompatibility of romantic love with Arthurian society, as Marie depicts it.
Bloch, R. Howard. Medieval Misogyny and the Invention of Western Romantic Love. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1991.
In the Middle Ages, the roles of women became less restricted and confined and women became more opinionated and vocal. Sir Gawain and The Green Knight presents Lady Bertilak, the wife of Sir Bertilak, as a woman who seems to possess some supernatural powers who seduces Sir Gawain, and Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Wife of Bath Prologue and Tale, present women who are determined to have power and gain sovereignty over the men in their lives. The female characters are very openly sensual and honest about their wants and desires. It is true that it is Morgan the Fay who is pulling the strings in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; nevertheless the Gawain poet still gives her a role that empowers her. Alison in The Wife if Bath Prologue represents the voice of feminism and paves the way for a discourse in the relationships between husbands and wives and the role of the woman in society.
The story begins with the Marquise de Merteuil corresponding with Vicomte de Valmont regarding a luscious new act of ‘revenge’, as she describes it, against the Comte de Gercourt. The young Cecile de Volanges has just come home from the convent and her marriage to Gercourt has been arranged. However, before he can wed the innocent child, Merteuil proposes Valmont ‘educate’ her, thus spoiling Gercourt’s fancy for untarnished convent girls. Valmont is uninterested in such an easy seduction and is far more aroused by the thought of lulling The Presidente’ de Tourvel, the very epitome of virtue, into submission. And so the tale unfolds.
“The Wife of Bath’s Tale” is written in an entertaining and adventurous spirit, but serves a higher purpose by illustrating the century’s view of courtly love. Hundreds, if not thousands, of other pieces of literature written in the same century prevail to commemorate the coupling of breathtaking princesses with lionhearted knights after going through unimaginable adventures, but only a slight few examine the viability of such courtly love and the related dilemmas that always succeed. “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” shows that women desire most their husband’s love, Overall, “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” shows that the meaning of true love does not stay consistent, whether between singular or separate communities and remains timeless as the depictions of love from this 14th century tale still hold true today.