|
COPYRIGHT 2004 Adam Mickiewicz University Press
ABSTRACT
Medieval romance is a genre difficult to define: it tan be written in verse (like romances of Chretien de Troyes) but also in prose (like Malory's works) and the length of a romance might vary. Some see in the romance an antecedent of the novel, although at the saine lime they indicate how the real world is permeated with the supernatural in a romance. Moreover, as a literary genre, the romance invokes social and moral codes of the rimes, and contributed to the construction of the ideals of courtliness. The ideal of courtliness and of courtly love constructed in romances proved to be a very potent one, as it has survived in Western culture well into the 20th century, even if in a "vulgarised" form. The 20th century witnessed a strong fascination with the medieval culture, which is evident in Alfred Tennyson's poetry. The aim of this paper is to analyse the ways in which some ideas of courtliness survived in the 20th century fiction on the basis of W. M. Thackeray's Vanity Fair: The altered social and political situation, as well as the dominance of realism in fiction, required a form different than romance and a new ideal of love. Therefore, the romance had to be "displaced", to borrow Frye's (1990) term, in order to fit the form of a realistic fiction and comply with Victorian morality. Adulterous love, as presented in Tristan or in the stories of Sir Lancelot and Guinevere, was either pushed to the margins, stigmatised and rendered unwholesome as it leads lovers to ruin (as is evident in Becky Sharp's relationship with Lord Steyne in Vanity Fair), or it could be pushed down from the pedestal to the level of imperfect characters of Vanity Fair; acquiring a comic, or at best pathetic quality.
**********
The contemporary popular image of the Middle Ages, perpetrated by novels and films alike, is that of wars, crusades and the romance. The narratives of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table or of Tristan and Isolde, function in a number of versions or adaptations, as stories, films or operas. The still evident popularity of the romance might result from the fact that it is a source of certain ideals, or myths, (1) which contributed to the development of the Western culture. In his study of medieval culture Jaeger (1985) points to the concept of courtliness as an example of "a civilising force" (1985: 9), and claims that it is "in origin an instrument of the urge of civilising" (1985: 9). He claims that courtly literature blossomed in the second half of the 12th century as a result of new ideals of courtliness (1985: 14), but it also helped to propagate these ideals. Thus, the courtly romance had "a pedagogic function"; the genre "put forward an ideal model of the civilised warrior" and was "the single most powerful factor in transmitting ideas of courtesy from the courtier class in which they originated to the lay nobility" (Jaeger 1985: 14). The "civilised warrior", or a knight, of medieval romance was later transformed into a refined courtier of the renaissance and a gentleman of the 19th century, as Ossowska (2000), Gilmour (1981)2 and Girouard (1981) indicated in their works. The knight was supposed to be loyal to his lord, pious and courageous. Significantly, he was also supposed to have a lady of his heart, to whom he might devote his services. (3)
The love that a knight would bestow on his lady could be described as courtly love, amor courtois, although many critics now express their misgivings about the term as a critical concept. (4) The debate that has been conducted for a long time on the subject does not so much provide a definition of courtly love, as points to complexity and elusiveness of the phenomenon. Indeed, there is no single definition that would be wholly satisfactory. As Bumke wrote,
Courtly love could be unrequited love or it could culminate in sensual fulfilment. Love could be directed at a lady of high nobility or at a woman of more humble descent. If the chosen lady was married, courtly love was adulterous in nature. On the other hand, love for one's own wife could also be courtly, as could the love between two unmarried people. Courtly love frequently required lengthy service by the man, yet sometimes it was quickly consummated without service. (Bumke 2000: 361)
Even the work of Andreas Capellanus, the author of the late 12th-century treatise, De Amore (The art of courtly love), (5) does hot much help to understand courtly love because, as numerous scholars pointed out, his perspective might have been ironic (Burnley 1998: 151; Bumke 2000: 362). However, it is hot the aim of the following article to analyse different definitions of the phenomenon or to discuss its role in the medieval world. Rather, the main concern of this paper is to present the ways in which ideals associated with courtliness and courtly love survived in the 19th-century novel. Obviously, the altered...
Read the full article for free courtesy of your local library.
|
Bookmark this article
Print this article
Link to this article
Email this article
Digg It!
Add to del.icio.us
RSS
