Eliduc & Emaré [R Oct 2]

The cloth-become-robe acts as a central powerful object in Emaré; in Eliduc, love itself seems to have a similar central position of agency. Choose one of these and explain your sense of how its agency operates. (You might want to consider along the way whether or not it’s an agency similar to that Julian Yates ascribed to the oranges.)

3 thoughts on “Eliduc & Emaré [R Oct 2]

  1. Love does seem to be the more powerful actant in the assemblages within Eliduc’s life. In the beginning of the lai, Eliduc is loved by his King in Brittany. The actant love inspires jealousy in the other knights within the court, which causes the lies and slander that eventually result in Eliduc’s banishment. In this assemblage, love is the central power source that sets off conflict in Eliduc’s life.
    Later, Eliduc’s loyalty to his wife is at war with the love that he feels for Guilliadon. Eventually the friction between the two actants subsides when Eliduc gives in to his adulterous impulses. Again, here love is the more powerful force in the assemblage. At the end of the lai, the love that Eliduc’s wife has for him and the true love that she finds exists between Eliduc and Guilliadon prompts her to “free Eliduc of his marital bond.” Here, the actant love outweighs responsibilities and promises. Love is acting with two different intentions here, to destroy a man’s life and to bring two lovers together. In this way, it’s agency is similar to that of the oranges. Based on the intentions of the human actants surrounding the actant love, love has very different purposes in different assemblages.

  2. The cloth-become-robe, in Emare, seems to have really it’s own agency, almost neutral. The robe is also given a history of love and violence, where it was created out of love and it’s possession is passed from owner, mainly men, through violence. The robe is almost a distrubtive agent, especially in Emare being assulted by her father. But for Emare, it protects her and helps her become stronger, helping her develop her own agency.

  3. Aubrey’s thoughts on the agency of love in Eliduc remind me of how Cohen talked about the negative and positive capacity of assemblages. His argument, that assemblages are neutral networks rather than , is directly applicable to how Aubrey describes love as being both a destructive and creative actant in Eliduc’s life.

    For Emare, love or desire seems to function in a similar fashion. Emare’s robe of jewels is the actant which spawns desire while also being the element which creates the most suspicion.

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