“Yvain and Lancelot: The Complications of Knighthood”

My essay will be dealing with the romantic relationship between Yvain and Laudine within Chrétien’s The Knight with the Lionand the relationship between Lancelot and Guinevere in Malory’s work. I want to compare the two knights and specifically locate points in which their acts of courtly love differ and agree with each other. I also want to look at the ways in which they both seek chivalric status in the stories. By this I mean specifically looking at the ways in which the two knights attempt to boost their status when they are away from their love interest. We’ve seen that the times in which the knights are increasing their status they are sometimes compensating for something that is missing. For Yvain, we see that he is compensating for his time away from tournaments and when he resumes competing he fails his promises to Laudine. With Lancelot, we see that he competes constantly yet he hides his identity and often fails Guinevere by competing for other women. With this scenario we see a bit of an inverse, and it seems that the two knights are working in different ways to redeem not only their lives as knights but also their love lives. Finally, I want to look at the influence of Laudine and Guinevere and specifically look at the ways in which they influence and change their romantic interests. Ever since the beginning of the course I’ve been very interested in the idea of courtly love and how it acts and influences within the stories we’ve read. I’m also interested in the connection between the codes of chivalry and these two authors stories of love. By comparing these two knights I believe I could find interesting parallels and differences.

Some of the sources I’ve looked into so far deal with topics that I think would enhance this comparison. Harry E. Cole’s essay Forgiveness as Structure: The Book of Sir Launcelot and Queen Guineveredeals with the idea of forgiveness within Malory’s story and how it shows that Malory still finds a way to show that Lancelot is still a redeemable character despite his sinful actions. Despite Malory’s view, Cole still sees Lancelot’s relationship in a negative way. Yvain is driven to madness when he is denied by Laudine, but he finds a way back to an acceptable and chivalric status once he is forgiven by Laudine. For Lancelot, we see that he cannot find a way back to chivalric status due to the fact that he is sleeping with King Arthurs wife. Both of these knights seem to be seeking the same goal of being chivalric moral knights and good courtly lovers. The difference between them is the ways in which they attempt to succeed and attain that goal. So far the topic doesn’t have a formed thesis, but I want to boil it down to something that deals with chivalric code and courtly love within these two stories.

Any comments on how I could boil this down a bit more or ideas on the topic would really help. Thanks.

I have a couple questions concerning the actions that lead to Arthurs death. Towards the end of the story we see that Arthur has two dreams that deal with his death. In one he sits in a chair on a wheel, “…And the king thought there was under him, far from him, an hideous deep black water, and therein was all manner of serpents and worms and wild beasts, foul and horrible. And suddenly the king thought that the wheel turned up-so-down, and he fell among the serpents, and every beast took him by a limb” (300). In the other dream we see that Gawain visits Arthur and warns him of his death unless Arthur creates a treaty with Mordred. What do you think motivated Arthur to duel Sir Mordred even though Arthur knew through these dreams and visions that he was probably going to die? Do you think it has something to do with the death of Gawain and the fate of Lancelot/The Round Table? Or do you think it was a personal motivation for Arthur?

Throughout the story we find that Lancelot defends his sinful actions.I have a few questions concerning his outlook on the situation. He has reason to believe that he was right in in slaying his fellow knights when going to see Guinevere, and he has reason to believe that he was right in slaying more of his kinsmen when he went to save Guinevere from being put to death. A quote that is fascinating to me reads, “…’ye may say what ye will, for ye wot well with yourself I will not strive. But there as ye say that I have slain your good knights, I wot well that I have done so, and that me sore repenteth; but I was forced to do battle with them in saving my life, other ellis I must have suffered them to have slain me…'”(Malory,267). Here we see that Lancelot is saddened by the fact that he had to slay his kinsmen, but does there seem to be some sort of strange justification in his logic? Is Lancelot warping the idea of chivalry? Or does he still believe that he is acting as a chivalrous knight? In terms of his treatment of Guinevere, it seems as though he believes he is doing the right thing despite it being the furthest thing from a good idea. Are his actions some sort of warping of the chivalric code due to his love for Guinevere?

Considering the complications of the love triangle in this story (Yseut, Tristran, and King Mark), the use of potions, and God’s role in the three characters interactions, I want to look back to The Art of Courtly Love. How does King Mark fit into some of the things we see in Books 1 and 2 of The Art of Courtly Love? Given the fact that he is constantly swaying from one emotion or action to another, can we pinpoint some of the ideas that we get from The Art of Courtly Love onto his particular case?