In this final essay I am taking an object-oriented approach to John Lydgate’s A Complaynte of a Lover’s Lyfe, which is written in the Chaucerian dream-sequence tradition.  Throughout my essay, I contend that the narrator’s account of the events directly influences the role of basic objects that appear within the poem.  Put another way, I argue that the very dream itself serves as a frame by which the narrator can impose his own preconceptions on the objects of this vision.  Through this line of reasoning, I hope to reveal the narrator’s own biases and show how his account of events is overshadowed by his own ineptitude as a voyeur and storyteller.

Moreover, since the narrator admits to his audience that he is a poor story teller, I insist that such a shortcoming immediately sets the audience up for complexities in the interpretation of inanimate objects.  That is to say, key items and natural phenomena are products of the narrator’s own vision, which questions the validity of these imaginative productions.  Therefore, I ultimately argue that readers should be skeptical of the narrator’s own ontological view of things.  Additionally, I approach this idea of objects in the dream-vision by drawing from Ian Bogost’s short film Seeing Things, which loosely references the concept of Mise en abyme.  In this case, I am seeing the narrator’s dream as a story within a story, which is what helps illuminate the narrator’s depictions of the inorganic.

If there is one major idea that I came away with after reading Eliduc, the issue of mismanaged promises was the the highlight of the lai. Throughout the piece, the knight’s imprudent attitude toward making chivalrous oaths leads him into immense complexities in what would otherwise be a rather simple tale.  Although such mismanagement and foolish behavior would make the knight prone to being labeled as the antithesis of knightly values, it seems as though the knight’s misfortune really underlines the impossibility of living to such a strict code of values.  In other words, Marie seems to be providing an account of the overreaching aspects of chivalry, which can be seen in the complex assemblages that she builds throughout the tale.

Through an intricate web of promises and oaths, Marie sheds light on the difficult and seemingly absurdly loyal role a knight must fulfill, and one of the key methods of conveying this idea is through marriage. As he is exiled from his homeland, the knight assures his wife that he will be “faithful to her,” which seems to be a reasonable action. However, the lack of details Marie gives us —in regard to his marriage— seem to make the knights promise more of an obligation, for his only barrier for not cheating on her is “Christianity,” which he claims “would not allow it” (602).  Therefore, it seems that religion manifests itself as a force that ultimately forces the knight to retain empty promises that ultimately complicate the plot.

Moreover, the assemblage that the knight forms wife his wife provides a somewhat of a parallel to the relationship that he forms wife his lord.  For example, the act of the old lord trying to regain the knight’s assistance seems to show how there is a constant wavering inside the knight’s mind, for despite the offer of “a third of his inheritance / and the whole of his treasure” the knight still has an intense bond with his original lord, whom he “must go to help him in his need” (637).  Not only does his response show a perplexing loyalty to someone who wrongfully treated him, but it also shows a bond that pointlessly holds the knight in the service of another.

Such assemblages seem to clash with each other, for they are constructed apart from each other, yet the knight inadvertently brings them in contact with one another. Moreover, they seem to reveal how the medieval system of chivalry held a great deal of incompatibility with free-will or an individuals desires, which often come and go on a whim.  Therefore, it seems that Marie is giving us a case study into when oaths go wrong.

Throughout my reading of Bruno Latour’s Reassembling the Social I kept thinking about how his push for a new definition of sociology had many real-world opportunities and could truly bring about a new view on how we view networks.

One aspect of his work that struck me as rather radical was his assertion that the original definition and makeup of sociology are in the business of “interrupt[ing]” associations rather than resuming them, which is to say that for far too long we have been neglecting the deeper, more involved aspects of a network.  Taking this statement into consideration, I began to think more deeply about the entire view that we as humans take, when we think about the social. Before studying the works of Latour, Bennett, and others (that we have discussed in class), I felt like I had never considered the immensity of the “thing” and how taking the time to study it could actually play a vital role in the way I, and others, see the processes of the world.

Therefore, I think Latour’s assertion is unequivocal, for he is essentially referencing the fact that we have, in essence, been trained to be anthropocentric in our study of “the social.” Now, such a revelation may seem to be slightly overdue, but Bennett’s “Edible Matter” truly highlighted the significance of this assertion.  In other words, it shows how the social delves much deeper than just power plants and collections of rubbish in drainage grates — it brings the concept to much more personal level, a level we are all familiar with.  Such a connection, between Bennett and Latour, has made me think much more about all the assemblages that I encounter on a daily basis, in regard to edible things.

Put another way, I have come to see these assemblages in a far different light. To illustrate, before I would have thought about the Red Bull or coffee I drink as things that help give me energy, but put in the perspective of Bennett, I began to think about the possible assemblage that could emerge. That is, the caffeine in the drink, the money spent, the sleep neglected, the good or bad results that may happen from studying —there are just so many things that play a part. Therefore, I think it has been exceedingly beneficial to study these theories, for put in a more serious context, we truly could have a immensely different view of situations we would have normally overlooked.