Chrétien de Troyes' Arthurian Romances
I've been reading these (Penguin 1990's edition) and I've now read Erec & Enide, Cligès and half of The Knight and the Cart (Lancelot).
(I included the book cover because it illustrates beautifully why I love medieval art. The era of photography and photo-realistic art [and understanding/importance of perspective] makes that image delightfully weird. The artist just doesn't care about any of that. The guy on horseback has literally stuck his sword into that other guy's face. And that's a lion, fighting alongside. But what a story!)
I thought that Erec is such an ass. He was fine at first but at a very innocuous remark, he basically drags Enide all over the country because work-life balance? That's not balancing marriage and knightliness, Erec. Telling Enide to not say anything, Enide then twisting herself into knots over whether Erec would get murdered by the next three knights trying to sneak-attack him and whether she should warn him and get verbally thrashed, or not warn and potentially see him killed, was so frustrating. She's so devoted to him too, even after all that; she faints after this random count tries to forcibly marry her not only because of the forcibly-married part but because she thinks Erec is dead and she can't stand to be married to anyone else period. Erec & Enide was also written rather episodically, in three parts, so I kept expecting pieces of the past bits to be picked up, but they never really were. I'm guessing that they were probably told episodically--come back tomorrow night to hear the second installment!--but it's not obvious in text.
Cligés was a lot better. A lot easier for me to follow, too. There's one part I want to talk about though: about midway through Fenice and Cligès decide to try to get married 'the right way', i.e. Fenice is already married to Cligés' uncle and so they can't just run away, no, that would destroy Fenice's reputation 1. No, instead, Fenice decides to literally play dead, with her nurse Thessala helping by feeding her a potion which would make her seem dead. Then they would dig her up afterwards and no one would be the wiser, see. This was such a Romeo and Juliet plot that I stopped reading, thought about chronology, and then went back to reading, but couldn't help think this was going to end badly. And oh my god, IT DOES. (Other examples: Les Misérables. Lesson: don't literally play dead). Three wise doctors arrive and they infer correctly she's alive and then they start torturing her to make her speak. But the potion's effect means she can't speak or move and they literally get to the point of [torture]putting her over the fire to roast before the bereaved court ladies shatter the door barring them and rescue her. Things which I was no expecting: THAT.
I'm struck by how sometimes you can almost hear Chrétien saying some of the stuff. I mean, in the beginning of many of the tales he slips into the narrator role, and he says "written for my lady Marie [of Champagne, his patroness]". But in some of the knightly parts, where whichever knight is the hero is laying about and fighting so hard he splits weapons with the force of the blows, you can almost feel Chrétien's glee, like a little boy's, over how so-and-so is the best knight in all the land, unequalled, etc. Some of it is perhaps idealization for his audience, who would have been knights; knights becoming an actual noblish class is just beginning around this time, and they probably don't have people opening their doors and getting lavish hospitality everywhere they go. That's the dream or just an enjoyable fantasy, like our own fiction genres.
1: For some reason it is better to pretend to die and then marry Cligès than to run away. I'm pretty sure either way you're committing bigamy.... Oh! And also it's okay to do this (perhaps not in "real life morality" reasons, but in "audience will root for you" certainly) because there's a complex plot in which Cligès' uncle essentially stole Cligès' inheritance by marrying Fenice, whom Cligès then immediately fell in love with while they were retrieving her in Saxony (or thereabouts). Trying to explain how these stories work takes so much ink because they're basically stories with most of the description taken out, although there is always description of riches (oh the furs!) and the battles, of course, with the lance splitting and being knocked off horses and all that.
Crosspost: http://silverflight8.dreamwidth.org/151111.html.