Redefining gender through the arena of the male body: The reception of Thomas’s Tristan in the Old French “Le Chevalier de la Charette” and the Old Icelandic “Saga af Tristram ok Ísodd”

347 Pages·2008·4.21 MB·English

by  Karen Anouschka Lurkhur

REDEFINING GENDER THROUGH THE ARENA OF THE MALE BODY: THE
RECEPTION OF THOMAS'S TRISTRAN IN THE OLD FRENCH LE
CHEVALIER DE LA CHARETTE AND THE OLD ICELANDIC SAGA AF
TRISTRAM OK ISODD
BY
KAREN ANOUSCHKA LURKHUR
B.A., McGill University, 1999
M.A., University of Illinois, 2003
DISSERTATION
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Literature
in the Graduate College of the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2008
Urbana, Illinois
Doctoral Committee:
Associate Professor Karen L. Fresco, Chair
Professor Emeritus Marianne E. Kalinke
Assistant Professor Claudia Bornholdt
Professor Danuta R. Shanzer
UMI Number: 3337853
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Abstract
This dissertation concentrates on two medieval romances which occupy different
places in the medieval canon, Chretien de Troyes' Le Chevalier de la Charette and the
Old Icelandic Saga af Tristram ok Isodd. Both of these texts are responses to the Old
French Tristan romance and both deny the sexual ambiguity of the Tristan figure by
reconfiguring the equation of male body and masculinity that is typical of courtly
romance. Chretien is motivated by the disjunction between clerical and chivalric
paradigms of masculinity and he uses the experiences of Lancelot to define gender as
purely performative. Tristram ok Isodd, on the other hand, models the masculinity of
its hero on the gender system in the literary-historic sagas of Icelanders. While
maleness in this genre is largely based on performance, it rests on a biological basis.
Thus, the ability of the Old Icelandic hero to father a son marks his immunity to the
ambivalence which plagues the continental Tristan figure.
11
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the members of my committee, Karen Fresco, Marianne Kalinke,
Danuta Shanzer and Claudia Bornholdt for their careful reading and helpful
suggestions. I am especially grateful to Marianne Kalinke and Karen Fresco, the two
co-directors of my dissertation for their encouragement and support.
in
Table of Contents
Introduction 1
Chapter 1: Body and Gender in Romance 19
Chapter 2: Lancelot's Disruptive Body 80
Chapter 3: Tristan's Ambiguous Body 148
Chapter 4: The Icelandic Response to Tristan's Ambiguity 210
Conclusion 313
Works Cited 319
Appendix 340
Author's Biography 341
IV
Introduction
The Charette as an Anomalous Text: Secondary Literature
The Old French romance by Chretien de Troyes, Le Chevalier de la Charette, is both
provocative and provoking. Scholars have been unable to agree on the meaning of
this work to such an extent that even the opening verses of the Charette are a point of
debate.2 In 1883, Gaston Paris identified a feature of this romance which he claimed
had never before appeared in any other French work (519): courtly love, a construct
that would dominate medieval literary studies long after Paris. A great deal of
scholarly investigation has centered on this issue, specifically on the question of
Chretien's attitude towards his adulterous hero. Critics have typically been divided
about whether or not the Charette is a serious work whose ironic overtones are only
incidental, or an ostensibly serious work whose superstructure of ironic comment and
dramatization reveals its real intent, the author's rejection of its premises (Lacy 55).
1 For a summary of the manner in which the Charette has traditionally been interpreted by the
allegorical, structuralist and socio-historical schools of literary theory, see David J. Shirt, "Chretien's
'Charette' and its Critics, 1964-74," The Modern Language Review 73 (1978): 38-50. Also see F.
Douglas Kelly's Sens and Conjointure in the Chevalier de la Charette, Studies in French Literature 2
(Paris: Mouton, 1966) for a discussion of the largely negative critical appraisal of this romance from
1883-1959(4-21).
2 Numerous scholars have argued over the meaning of Chretien's prologue. The most notable of whom
include J. Frappier, "Le prologue du Chevalier de la Charette et son interpretation," Romania 93
(1972): 337-77; Faith Lyons, "'Entencion' in Chretien's Lancelot," Studies in Philology 51 (1954):
425-30; D. W. Robertson, Jr., "Some Medieval Literary Terminology, with Special Reference to
Chretien de Troyes," Studies in Philology 48 (1951): 669-92; Jean Rychner, "Le prologue du 'Chevalier
de la Charette,'" Vox Romanica 26 (1967): 1-23 and Karl D. Uitti, "Autanl en emporte // Funs:
Remarques sur le prologue du Chevalier de la Charette de Chretien de Troyes," Romania 105 (1984):
270-91. For a more recent discussion of this topic see Jan Janssens, "Le prologue du 'Chevalier de la
Charette': Une clef pour Interpretation du roman," Bel dire et bien aprandre: bulletin du Centre
d'etudes medievales et dialectales de I'Universite Lille III 4 (1986): 29-51.
3 Among the most influential critics who argue that the Charette fully subscribes to the ideal of courtly
love are Alfred Adler, "A Note on the Composition of Chretien's Charette," Modern Language Review
45 (1950): 33-39; Gustave Cohen, Chretien de Troyes et son Oeuvre 2nd ed. (Paris: Rodstein, 1948)
223-301; Douglas Kelly, Sens and Conjointure; Jean Rychner, "Le sujet et la signification du Chevalier
de la Charette," Vox Romanica 27 (1968): 50-76; L. T. Topsfield, Chretien de Troyes: A Study of the
Arthurian Romances (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1981) 105-74 and Z. P. Zaddy, "ie Chevalier de la
1
This question continues to inform the most recent critical approaches dealing
with the Charette. The most influential of these address questions of the text's
relationship to Chretien's other romances, its relation to the genre of Old French
romance in general, its stylistic and rhetorical structure, Chretien's relationship to his
ostensible patroness, Marie de Champagne. These critical tendencies have been
exemplified by the works of Norris Lacy, Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner and Douglas
Kelly. Approaches more centered on the narrative itself have been concerned with the
text's deliberate obfuscations, such as the meaning of Lancelot's hesitation to board
the charette or of Guenievre's initial refusal to greet him. These questions have been
addressed by scholars such as David Hult and Roberta Krueger. Others, such as
Charette and the De amove of Andreas Capellanus," Studies in Medieval Literature and Languages in
Memory of Frederick Whitehead, ed. W. Rothwell, W. R. J. Barron, David Blamires and Lewis Thorpe
(New York: Manchester UP, 1973) 363-99. Those who refute this view include Fanni Bogdanow, "The
Love Theme in Chretien de Troyes's 'Chevalier de la Charette,'" The Modern Language Review 67
(1972): 50-61; Margaret Burrell, "The Sens of Le Chevalier de la Charette and the Court of
Champagne," Bibliographical Bulletin of the International Arthurian Society 37 (1985): 299-308;
Edward Condren, "The Paradox of Chretien's Lancelot" Modern Language Notes 85 (1970): 434-53;
Joseph Duggan, The Romances of Chretien de Troves 281-82, 318; David C. Fowler, "L'amour dans le
Lancelot de Chretien," Romania 91 (1970): 378-91; Pierre Jonin, "Le vassalage de Lancelot dans le
Conte de la Charette" Le Moyen Age 58 (1952): 281-98; Richard L. Michener, "Courtly Love in
Chretien de Troyes: The 'Demande d'amour,"' Studia Neophilologica 42 (1970): 353-60; Peter S.
Noble, Love and Marriage in Chretien de Troyes (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1982) 65-82; D.
D. R. Owen, "Profanity and its Purpose in Chretien's Cliges and Lancelot," Forum for Modern
Language Studies 6 (1979): 37-48; David J. Shirt, "Chretien de Troyes and the Cart," Studies in
Medieval Literature and Languages in Memory of Frederick Whitehead, ed. W. Rothwell, W. R. J.
Barron, David Blamires and Lewis Thorpe (New York: Manchester UP, 1973) 279-301 and R. H.
Thomson, "The Prison of the Senses: Fin'Amor as a Confining Force in the Arthurian Romances of
Chretien de Troyes," Forum for Modern Language Studies 15 (1979): 249-54. Others have argued that
Chretien is deliberately ambiguous about this issue. See, for example, Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner's
three articles, "Le Chevalier de la Charette (Lancelot), "An Interpreter's Dilemma" and "Le Chevalier
de la Charette: That Obscure Object of Desire, Lancelot;" Theresa Ann Sears, "'And Fall down at his
Feet': Signifying Guinevere in Chretien's Le Chevalier de la Charette," Arthuriana 6 (1996): 44-53 and
Eugene Vinaver, "Landmarks in Arthurian Romance," The Expansion and Transformation of Courtly
Literature, Ed. Nathaniel B. Smith and Joseph T. Snow (Athens: Georgia UP, 1980) 17-31.
2
Jacques Ribard, on the other hand, have explored the analogies between Lancelot and
Christ.4
One approach that brings the problem of Chretien's irony to the forefront is the
recent body of scholarship that deals with the Charette from the perspective of gender
studies. In 1993 Roberta Krueger published Women Readers and the Ideology of
Gender in Old French Verse Romance, a work that argues for the importance of
gender to Old French romance. Although Krueger's main focus is hypothesizing about
the responses of female readers to this genre, her insistence that these works provoke
debate about gender issues by inscribing a female reader in the text invites
investigation into how exactly gender functions in this body of literature. Her chapter
on Yvain and Le Chevalier de la Charette answers precisely this question. Drawing on
Gayle Rubin's discussion of the circulation of the phallus and the exchange of women,
she argues that in both these works the establishment of masculinity depends on male
circulation of women. Moreover, this dependence is the site of male anxiety which, in
both texts, is resolved by gradually effacing the desire of the women who are
circulated, Laudine in Yvain and Guenievre in the Charette (64-66).
Simon Gaunt pursues Krueger's line of inquiry in his 1995 book, Gender and
Genre in Medieval French Literature. He stresses the importance of gender as an
Numerous critics have pointed out the parallels between Lancelot and Christ. Robert Hanning
interprets the Charette as "... a quasi-allegorical, comic adaptation of the Christian tradition of the
harrowing of hell by Christ..." (228). Peter Noble argues that on the symbolic level, Lancelot functions
as "... a Christ-like figure uniting with the human soul, represented by Guenevre" (100). G. Cohen
widens the analogy by further likening Lancelot to Orpheus and Guenievre to Eurydice (274). The most
significant argument in this vein, however, has been made by Ribard. In Chretien de Troves: Le
Chevalier de la Charette; Essai d'interpretation symbolique he argues that Lancelot's attempt to rescue
Guenievre from Meleagant is analogous to Christ's attempt to redeem from evil (represented by
Meleagant) the human soul (represented by the queen) (22). See also Paule Le Rider, "Le depassement
de lachevalerie dans le Chevalier de la Charette," Romania 112 (1991): 83-99.
3
element in the ideology of romance and accepts her argument that the male subject in
romance acquires his identity through his relationship with a woman but he
problematizes this male dependence beyond the limits pursued by Krueger. He argues
that there are two competing male perspectives which structure Old French romance in
general and Chretien's Charette in particular, the clerical and the chivalric. He
maintains that for clerical writers such as Chretien, chivalric masculinity, because of
its construction in relation to femininity, was deeply suspect. Clerical writers thus
sought to erase this competing model. For Gaunt, this is accomplished in the Charette
by the interaction between Chretien and Godefroy, the fellow cleric to whom Chretien
entrusts the task of finishing the romance. Gaunt argues that the end of the text, where
Godefroy reaffirms the relationship between Chretien and himself, ultimately
valorizes the bond between these two male clerics rather than the bond between the
heterosexual lovers, Lancelot and Guenievre (102-03). Like Krueger, he sees this
handing over of authorial responsibility from Chretien to Godefroy as an attempt to
erase the woman's influence invoked at the beginning of the poem by Chretien's
description of Marie de Champagne as his patroness (Krueger 54-66; Gaunt 101-
102).5
5 See Nick Corbyn, "Irony and Gender Performance in Le Chevalier de la Charette" Arthurian
Literature, ed, James P. Carley and Felicity Riddy, vol. 15 (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1997) 37-54;
Wendy Knepper, "Theme and Thesis in Le Chevalier de la Charette" Arthuriana 6 (1996): 54-68 and
David J. Shirt's two articles, "Godefroi de Lagny et la composition de la 'Charette,' Romania 96
(1975): 27-52 and "How much of the Lion can we put before the Cart?: Further Light on the
Chronological Relationship of Chretien de Troyes' Lancelot and Yvain," French Studies 31 (1977): 1-
17 for a further discussion of the relationship between Chretien and Godefroy. Shirt's influential thesis
has since been discredited by Evelyn Mullally in her article, "The Order of Composition of Lancelot
and Yvain" Bibliographical Bulletin of the International Arthurian Society 36 (1984): 217-29. Gustave
Cohen also discusses the material considerations that might have prevented Chretien from completing
the Charette himself (269-70) while Joan Ferrante, on the other hand, argues that Chretien refused to
finish the romance because he could not resolve the conflict between Lancelot's heroism and the
destructive effects of his love for the queen (150-52). In his article "Author/Narrator/Speaker" Hult
4