[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
Dont il ne sera ja jour hors,
Et qui leurs cuers bien conneüst,
Ja an telz periz ne feüst.
Mès por ce nes connoist nus mais,
Quar un te di, autre te fais. (vv. 1-10)
Keeping the majority of the structure intact, the narrator makes a number of
changes which alter the emphasis of his source, Bisclavret, in order to produce
a wholly misogynous work. Framed by a prologue and an epilogue which
denounce marriage, the narrator transforms the poem: Avec véhémence, mais
sans la moindre originalité, [l auteur] y développe les clichés les plus rebattus de
l antiféminisme médiéval; entre ses mains, Biclarel devient un exemplum,
éclairant sur les dangers qu il y a à se marier, à fair confiance à une femme
(Milin, p. 112). The narrator s building blocks are the basic elements of
Bisclavret, but with significant changes. The admirer is already established as the
wife s lover (vv. 55-56) whom she prefers to her husband. The wife s determined
attempt to discover her husband s secret is presented as founded on her wish to
be rid of him, while the reduction of the lover s role serves to underline the wife s
treachery. In Biclarel, the second husband is not attacked by the wolf, and indeed
never makes a direct appearance in the narrative at all, which allows the narrator
to focus on the wife s culpability. Like Bisclavret, the transformed knight makes
two attacks, but both are on the wife.
Biclarel demonstrates the employment of a different technique from Melion
in order to remove any sympathetic trait from the wife. Although the actions of
Melion s lady are central to the plot, her character is almost effaced, but
Biclarel s wife dominates the early part of the narrative. She is defined by a
deceitful loquacity, typifying the medieval misogynist s view of woman as
42
Introduction
verbal transgression, indiscretion, and contradiction (Bloch, Medieval Misogyny
and the Invention of Western Romantic Love, p. 56). In Bisclavret, the wife
persuades her husband to reveal his secret in a few lines of dialogue,
supplemented by the narrator s descriptions of how she le blandi e losenga (p.
60); in Biclarel, her speeches dominate the early part of the text, taking up 132
lines of the opening scene, almost a third of the narrative proper. Her argument
encompasses Bisclavret s wife s fear of a rival, but hugely expands her
protestations of love, her sorrow at her husband s distrust, and her comments on
the amisté appropriate to marriage, which in Marie s text are confined to seven
lines (vv. 80-86). Because the audience is privy to her adulterous deception, and
to the narrator s antimarriage theme, the wife s insistence on her husband s
transgression in keeping a secret from her and her promises of faith become
deeply ironic. Her repetition of celer, decevrer, couvrir, mentir, anbler and secré
becomes a gloss on her own motives, and her speeches demonstrate a connection
between garrulousness, gossip and promiscuity, which Carla Casagrande
characterises as a typically medieval misogynous frame, in that women s
intemperate and perverse loquacity was seen not only as a potential source of disorder
within family or community but also as a threat to women s chastity, which could never
be guarded enough. A woman who talked too much revealed too much interest in the
outside world, an unhealthy desire to weave a social network with her words. ( The
Protected Woman , pp. 98-99)
To complete this demonstration of her culpability, Biclarel s wife neither
persuades her husband to reveal the hiding-place of his clothes nor sends her
lover to steal them; rather she herself follows Biclarel and takes the clothes, thus
removing herself from woman s confined and proper place. In her gloating words,
De mari suis desevrée / Pour estre a mun ami livrée! (vv. 267-68), the narrator
leaves no position of innocence possible (Bloch, Medieval Misogyny , p. 3).
With the theft completed by her own hand, she lies to her lover, telling him that
her husband is dead (v. 271).
In each of the texts the husband s self-identification as werwolf and his
subsequent betrayal are reflected to a greater or lesser extent in the revelation and
restoration of his human identity. In Melion the revelation comes from the squire,
43
Two Old French Werwolf Lays
but in Bisclavret and Biclarel the wife herself is forced to reveal the identity of [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl exclamation.htw.pl
Dont il ne sera ja jour hors,
Et qui leurs cuers bien conneüst,
Ja an telz periz ne feüst.
Mès por ce nes connoist nus mais,
Quar un te di, autre te fais. (vv. 1-10)
Keeping the majority of the structure intact, the narrator makes a number of
changes which alter the emphasis of his source, Bisclavret, in order to produce
a wholly misogynous work. Framed by a prologue and an epilogue which
denounce marriage, the narrator transforms the poem: Avec véhémence, mais
sans la moindre originalité, [l auteur] y développe les clichés les plus rebattus de
l antiféminisme médiéval; entre ses mains, Biclarel devient un exemplum,
éclairant sur les dangers qu il y a à se marier, à fair confiance à une femme
(Milin, p. 112). The narrator s building blocks are the basic elements of
Bisclavret, but with significant changes. The admirer is already established as the
wife s lover (vv. 55-56) whom she prefers to her husband. The wife s determined
attempt to discover her husband s secret is presented as founded on her wish to
be rid of him, while the reduction of the lover s role serves to underline the wife s
treachery. In Biclarel, the second husband is not attacked by the wolf, and indeed
never makes a direct appearance in the narrative at all, which allows the narrator
to focus on the wife s culpability. Like Bisclavret, the transformed knight makes
two attacks, but both are on the wife.
Biclarel demonstrates the employment of a different technique from Melion
in order to remove any sympathetic trait from the wife. Although the actions of
Melion s lady are central to the plot, her character is almost effaced, but
Biclarel s wife dominates the early part of the narrative. She is defined by a
deceitful loquacity, typifying the medieval misogynist s view of woman as
42
Introduction
verbal transgression, indiscretion, and contradiction (Bloch, Medieval Misogyny
and the Invention of Western Romantic Love, p. 56). In Bisclavret, the wife
persuades her husband to reveal his secret in a few lines of dialogue,
supplemented by the narrator s descriptions of how she le blandi e losenga (p.
60); in Biclarel, her speeches dominate the early part of the text, taking up 132
lines of the opening scene, almost a third of the narrative proper. Her argument
encompasses Bisclavret s wife s fear of a rival, but hugely expands her
protestations of love, her sorrow at her husband s distrust, and her comments on
the amisté appropriate to marriage, which in Marie s text are confined to seven
lines (vv. 80-86). Because the audience is privy to her adulterous deception, and
to the narrator s antimarriage theme, the wife s insistence on her husband s
transgression in keeping a secret from her and her promises of faith become
deeply ironic. Her repetition of celer, decevrer, couvrir, mentir, anbler and secré
becomes a gloss on her own motives, and her speeches demonstrate a connection
between garrulousness, gossip and promiscuity, which Carla Casagrande
characterises as a typically medieval misogynous frame, in that women s
intemperate and perverse loquacity was seen not only as a potential source of disorder
within family or community but also as a threat to women s chastity, which could never
be guarded enough. A woman who talked too much revealed too much interest in the
outside world, an unhealthy desire to weave a social network with her words. ( The
Protected Woman , pp. 98-99)
To complete this demonstration of her culpability, Biclarel s wife neither
persuades her husband to reveal the hiding-place of his clothes nor sends her
lover to steal them; rather she herself follows Biclarel and takes the clothes, thus
removing herself from woman s confined and proper place. In her gloating words,
De mari suis desevrée / Pour estre a mun ami livrée! (vv. 267-68), the narrator
leaves no position of innocence possible (Bloch, Medieval Misogyny , p. 3).
With the theft completed by her own hand, she lies to her lover, telling him that
her husband is dead (v. 271).
In each of the texts the husband s self-identification as werwolf and his
subsequent betrayal are reflected to a greater or lesser extent in the revelation and
restoration of his human identity. In Melion the revelation comes from the squire,
43
Two Old French Werwolf Lays
but in Bisclavret and Biclarel the wife herself is forced to reveal the identity of [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]