Sweet Emaré's Sweet Come Back

Emaré must be my favorite tale by far.  In the face of death, Emaré/ Egaré somehow kills everyone with kindness and grace.  I wish I wasn't as petty as I am, because she is an absolute rock-star.  A humble upbringing by Dame Abró was clearly much better than her heathen father.  I find it interesting how no one questions anyone.  There is no "dude wtf" or "why did you replace me with the King of Sicily?"  (ALSO lol at his temporary blindness and instantly blaming it on fairies)

I'm very proud of her to have the strength to tell her father she will not marry him in the name of the Lord.  Still shocked that his first instinct was to cast his own daughter who he's seen for the first time in YEARS to sea with no resources.  But at the same time, I feel like a lot of people make rash decisions as such.

Emaré, now Egaré once she reaches Wales seems to experience one of the greatest fortunes the world could bestow upon her.   Much like our class discussion about the author giving the reader positive/life changing events, but taking away with tragedy (although this is of a higher scale than Sir Orfeo's) I find that it makes me want to keep reading.  Having a healthy boy and living to take care of him, then being cast off to sea AGAIN because of her husband's mom (talk about bad in-laws).

The way she goes about telling, or having Segramore tell them, both her father and husband who they are is extraordinarily eloquent.  She carries no hate in her which I know I would be FIRED UP if anything happened to me even remotely as terrible as that.  I'd say the lesson is to prove by doing and always strive to be the better person (and to raise even better kids).

The Mill of Lies

The scene opens, a drunk person appears and is telling people a story that will supposedly surpass the Knight's Tale and I am hooked... then it became pushy and my 21st cenutry, feminist brain just doesn't know how to handle something that is considered romantic that is essentially this:

(Scary, I know.)  So naturally, we have another affair and we're back to the standard "How to Get Away with Cheating on Your Husband" type story.  It truly amazes me how cunning and...extra the characters are with their plans.  Seeing the secrets of the world is a big thing, I'm just happy no one got caught and had their face shoved into a boiling vat of water.  While I can understand the religious tides dictating a person's life during the time, how can someone be so gullible to just accept that your clerk can be closer to your wife than you??

I am a fan, however, of some dank revenge.  Absolon was so kind in trying to win Alison's heart and not just forcing her to stay in his presence, and was met with a whole lot of BS.  Glad he branded his revenge into the ass of Nicholas.  But of course, poor John was made into a laughing stock and humiliated as well as thoroughly cheated on.  RIP, here lies John's dignity.

Just some more shrugs.  I'm not sure how I feel with it all.  I just expect too much from these characters.

Drunk Writing of a Drunk Runaway?

First and foremost: What?

The scene is set, Guinevere is sneaking around the castle after King Arthur has fallen asleep and then she's calling out all of the knights even after she's been cheating on her husband? Nah, she can chill.  Then the knights start kissing up to her, for obvious reasons, but she's still unnecessary.   The way she talks about Kay saying "he has always had a vicious tongue no one can correct."  Someone needs to teach her that bitches get stitches. 

 

Calogrenant,VERY RELUCTANTLY, begins to tell the court about how some guy took him to a fountain and performed a rain dance that caused a crazy storm.  When said storm ended, a guy came out of nowhere and accused Calogrenant of starting a war with him and as these stories go, they naturally fought.  Unfortunately, our boy Cal lost.  Having the greatest friends he could imagine, Yvain volunteers to avenge Calogrenant's shame.  But Gunivere clearly didn't learn at an early age the national no snitchin policy and told Arthur in the A.Ms what happened despite Cal's clear discomfort. 

BUT YOU MUST BE WONDERING WHERE THE BEAUTIFUL WOMEN ARE!

They're there.  Half of Cal's story was about the gorgeous maidens he saw.  Then Yvain encountered the "beautiful lady" and went on a page long declaration of how he is a slave to her love.  Then he becomes her actual slave?  Cannot lie, I love how she testes him by asking all those questions about what made him fall in love with her.  For a split second, it was as if courtly love was just as dumb a concept to them as it is to us.

This has been an odd start to yet another odd story.  People think Yvain is dead, Kay thinks he was drunk and ran away.  I don't know, shrugs are all I can do.  

Lessons Besides Cheating For Dummies

The first 46 pages of Erec and Enide were a complete whirl wind of wtf. Erec sets off on this adventure to spite a knight whose dwarf lashed Erec and the queen’s maid in waiting… Chivalrous?  The whole time I was picturing the troll from Dora the Explorer (whoops).  Other than that, it was a pretty normal tale of revenge in my opinion.  Then he stayed in the house of a vavasor in the company of his wife and beautiful daughter.  But this wasn’t just some guy’s daughter, it was the love of Erec’s life.  Naturally, he would die if he didn’t have her.  

I found it interesting how despite the terrible romantic build up, there were lessons within this that pertained to anything but romance and courting.  On page 7 the vavasor says “poverty harms many men”, so at that point I was getting excited that I didn’t have to read about how the women were setting up the house anymore.  He continues to say that he was away at war for so long and had to sell most of his belongings.  Even years behind us, the world has yet to learn how to treat those who fought for their governments with any honor-besides ice cream of course.

Another quote I find exceedingly interesting is on page one: “…always aspire and endeavor to speak eloquently and to teach well.”  I find it interesting that this showed up in our prior reading as well.  Sharing knowledge is fundamental in societies.  Another deep moment I found was on page 26, “the eyes, the birthplace of love’s joy”.  This made the actual love as opposed to lust more concrete between the couple.  I, for one, appreciated it as opposed to these weird teen fiction fantasy moments. 

Enide’s ability to understand that there was something wrong with the way Erec gave up his dignity in a sense to spend every moment with her.  However, the way he praised her for bringing it to his attention vs. the way he didn’t want her to speak during his hunt for…whatever pride he may find, was oddly ridiculous.  I understand that he wanted to prove he wasn’t a weak-willed, whipped, wussy (Wonderful alliteration, right?), but he just took it out on the love of his life??? What happened bro?!  Then he switched his mind AGAIN when she was trying to get him to leave the place they lodged at. 

Everyone is too driven by sex in these stories.  Yeah, I can be too, but it needs to calm down.  But Enide is kind of a badass.  Look at her intoxicatin’ fools with those words (p. 43).  I love how she has a voice and a mind in this story instead of looking for ways to cheat on her husband.  Just some unpopular opinion.

The Complete romances of Chrétien de Troyes.  Updated Edition Translated with an Introduction.  David Staines.

Of Cougars & Knights

The principles of courtly love genuinely surprised me when I read about how men under the age of 18 supposedly cannot love.  Yes, I’m sure we’ve all had our fair share of 13 year-old selves believing they are in love (especially with Justin Timberlake, or is that just me?), but who’s to say that we cannot learn from those dark, selfie filled times?  However, age does not equate to maturity and I find that the reading uses maturity as a necessity for love.  “Love” in this passage seems to be defined as a broader term as opposed to what we would find “true love” from typical fairytales.  Placing these conditions into the mind-set of people in the 21^st century is like hearing your grandparents tell you about “the good ole days” as they quake with despair as they watch “teens these days” treat love as something disposable like lust. 

Courtly love is similar to our society’s ideals in the differentiation between passion, lust and love.  There is a recognition that passion and lust are pieces in the great puzzle of love, but do not correlate to the phenomenon itself.  The idea in courtly love that if one becomes impoverished, it can only damage the love is a complete 180 flip from the fictional ideals of “for richer or for poorer”.  Love being unconditional is an all-known fictional ideal that has wormed its way into the vows of married couples for years.  However, the courtly love idea rings true for most couples, leading to numerous divorces and fights.

The original audience for tales of courtly love was women.  These tales gave men a set of guidelines to courtly love to prevent them from roaming the lands and raping women.  It taught chivalry with the proper romantic tricks.  It gave power to the women (the beloved) over whom they chose to love.  The implications are more than a sexual response to another human, it is a mental one.  Courtly love focuses on what we would call ‘genuine connection’ between two individuals.  It cannot be neither forced nor feigned nor denied.  The concreteness of feelings is explored in depth for lovers near and far with courtly love, as well as the women’s ability to muster a form of power over the men.   

Fairy tales of romance written about couples that are not married is a foreign subject.  During the time period, most people didn’t marry for love, but for practicality - which isn’t as foreign as romance stories for unmarried couples.  It was a creative, entertaining outlet that taught young men ways to woo a woman and to extend future marriages to greater heights.  Also, I find it laughable that the stories include Cougars and Sugar Mommas.  I find that the power that comes from money and prestige is still a part of these tales despite the attention on mental wooing methods.  Evidently, love appeals to most people despite the lack of it in peoples’ real lives.  It’s nice to see how women took the reigns on the horse of love and managed to drag it out of muddied pits to polish and present to us all.