Space, Gender, and Memory in Middle English Romance: Architectures of Wonder in Melusine

274 Pages·2016·2.887 MB·English

by  Jan Shaw (auth.)

T H E N E W M I D D L E A G E S
Space Gender
, , and
Memory Middle
in
English Romance
ARCHITECTURES
of
WONDER MELUSINE
in
Jan Shaw
The New Middle Ages
Series Editor
Bonnie   Wheeler
English & Medieval Studies
Southern Methodist University
Dallas ,  Texas , USA
Aim of the Series
The New Middle Ages is a series dedicated to pluridisciplinary studies
of medieval cultures, with particular emphasis on recuperating women’s
history and on feminist and gender analyses. This peer-reviewed series
includes both scholarly monographs and essay collections.
More information about this series at
http://www.springer.com/series/14239
Jan   S haw
Space, Gender, and
Memory in Middle
English Romance
Architectures of Wonder in M elusine
Jan   Shaw
University of Sydney
Department of English
Sydney , N ew South Wales, Australia
The New Middle Ages
ISBN 978-1-137-45650-2 ISBN 978-1-137-45046-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-45046-3
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016947266
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For my daughter
and
in memory of my mother

C
ONTENTS
Introduction 1
1 An Epistemology of Wonder 23
2 Wonder and Love 5 9
3 Building Gender 9 1
4 Architectures of Memory 129
5 Problematic Pasts and New Beginnings 1 65
Conclusion 215
Bibliography 2 19
Index 2 43
vii
Introduction

When we take a close look at the myth of Melusine, its range of diffusion,
its different versions, we are in fact investigating something that attracts
us, fascinates us even, like a mystery, a key to our identity.
Luce Irigaray 1
The thesis of this book is that the fi gure of Melusine offers a space for the
contemplation of late medieval feminine subjecthood. The Middle English
Melusine 2 offers a particularly rich source for such a study as it presents the
story of a powerful fairy/human woman who desires a full human life—
and death—within a literary tradition that is more friendly to women’s
agency than its continental counterparts. M elusine raises questions about
what is at stake in women’s self-determination, about narratives of identity
and women’s place in the divine order, about cultural and genealogical
memory, about spatial practices of gendered bodies in the built environ-
ment, and how these are narrativized in the medieval imagination. The
tale also considers how these processes play out in familial and social con-
texts. This book takes the fi gure of Melusine seriously—as a woman and a
potential subject in love—in the community and in genealogical memory.
Rather than focusing on the nature of fairies and the otherworld, although
references are made to these things, this book reads Melusine as a poten-
tial feminine subject. Moreover, it treats this potentiality as an idea that
could be formed within the learned and cultural discourses of its time.
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 1
J. Shaw, Space, Gender, and Memory in Middle English Romance,
The New Middle Ages, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-45046-3_1
2 INTRODUCTION
The tale 3 of Melusine tells the story of a powerful human/fairy fi gure
who marries the fully human Raimondin on condition that he does not
seek her out on Saturdays. Their marriage is based on mutual affection
and trust, and their domestic life is depicted as companionable and har-
monious. It is also enormously successful in a material sense; her fi nancial
resources and political acumen, when coupled with his family connections,
are a potent mix. Melusine is the prime mover, building castles and cities,
guiding Raimondin and later their sons with political and ethical advice.
She is the founding mother of a dynasty that reclaims lost patrimonial
estates and spreads its reach eastward, toward the holy land. Melusine
is born of a fairy mother and a human father, and this mixed nature is
foregrounded in the hybrid form she assumes every Saturday. This form,
however, is not an inevitable consequence of her hybrid nature; it is
imposed upon her by her mother, Pressine. Melusine and her two sisters
transgress against their parents when they are fi fteen years old, and as a
result, Pressine imposes conditions upon each of them. Melusine alone
undergoes the weekly bodily metamorphosis. If Melusine wishes to live a
human life and die a human death, she must fi nd a human husband who
will agree not to see her on Saturdays—when she assumes this hybrid
form—and never to reveal this agreement to any other person. 4
There have been many interesting and divergent readings of Melusine’s
fairy nature and her hybrid form. Numerous early studies trace the tale
and Melusine’s fairy nature to folkloric and mythological sources. 5 Much
interpretative effort has also been focused on determining Melusine’s place
in a good/evil dichotomy: she is either a productive benevolent force,
Jacques Le Goff’s oft-quoted “fairy of medieval economic growth,” 6 or a
demonic manifestation. 7 Kristina Pérez reads her as a largely negative fi g-
ure, an Oresteian mother, who steals Raimondin’s subjectivity. 8 For others,
she is a problematic fi gure, not wholly bad but a bearer of dangerous gifts. 9
Laurence Harf-Lancner makes a more positive reading but allows Melusine
less agency. For Harf-Lancner, Melusine is a conquered fairy: she is sub-
jugated by love and bends to the human law of her beloved. 1 0 The fore-
grounding of Melusine’s fairy nature in this way suggests that her humanity
is not relevant; her otherness is key. 11 Interest lies not in her sameness but in
her difference, a difference that is unsettling and problematic—that desta-
bilizes. The proportion of her otherness to her sameness is not of interest;
it is the fact of that otherness. It is the existence of any difference at all. It
would seem that her alterity compromises even that part of her which is
human. In these readings Melusine’s alterity is the negation of humanity.