Tag Archives: Bisclavret

The Ripping away of Bisclavret’s Insignia

Posted on by
2

While writing my paper analyzing Bisclavret, among other texts, I found an article that brought up some interesting thoughts about the symbolism of the removal of his clothing by his wife:

Premodern English society was based on a courtly system where the King reigned, Queen on arm, followed and supported by a tightly-knit group of knights who were completely devoted to him. These knights bore his insignia and fought his battles in return for land, money, and other bounty that was given in a gift-economy as a reward for their loyalty. In Bisclavret,the removal of this clothes does not only force him into his animal form, it removes his human form and this his insignia, identity, and ability to bear arms in honor of his King. Because he is unable to perform his knightly duties, his animal existence then becomes shameful because he is forced to be absent from the court for an entire year.

However, he is able to gain some of his pride back as he is able to show the king by licking his boots that he is in servitude to him and therefore has a rational mind. He then becomes the King’s loyal companion, accompanying him everywhere, able to protect him as he would in his human form.

When the wiseman realizes that Bisclavret must have attacked his wife for a reason and her torture leads to her admittance that she took Bisclavret’s clothes and the wolf before them is in fact him, he is given back his clothes. This return of the clothing allows him to return to his human form but he will not put them on. The wiseman, ever wise, suggests that he to do so in front of the king would be shameful. There are two possible reasons that he will not put on the clothes in front of the King and the court. The first is that by doing so he proves that he is in fact a hybrid and the removal of his clothes will turn him back into an animal, thus making him vulnerable again in the same way that he foolishly did to his wife by telling her his secret. The second, is that because he has been so shamed in the year that he was unable to fulfill his role as a knight that he fears returning to his human form where he can be blamed for his absence.

This idea ties the clothes together with humanity and the insignia that ties the knight to the king, all of which would function well in an object oriented approach.

Paper Proposal: “Debunking Traditional Chivalric Acts in the Medieval Court’s of Bisclavret and The Greene Knight”

Posted on by
Reply

My essay, “Debunking Traditional Chivalric Acts in the Medieval Court’s of Bisclavret and The Greene Knight”, in response to prompt A will use Brown’s “Thing Theory” along with some of Jane Bennett’s ideas about Thing-power and assemblages found in the first two chapters of Vibrant Matter to conclude what the untraditional examples of a challenge, mercy, shame, and violence found in Bisclavret and The Greene Knight say about the act itself and the ones performing it. I intend to investigate each act separately and make individual conclusions about the thingness of each and how it reflects on the protagonist. Both lais are medieval texts whose knightly protagonists must overcome the traditional knightly tests of allegiance to the king, keeping one’s word, mercy, and honor. In both Bisclavret and The Greene Knight, the knights either act in a way that is untraditional in the courtly practice of knighthood. I intend use two of Bill Brown’s key ideas in his theory to challenge the conventional modes of chivalry addressed in many of the critical literary texts I read. Continue reading →

Paper Proposal: Betraying a Werewolf in the Knight

Posted on by
Reply

I intend on completing option C for my paper.  The text that I will be using is Marie de France’s Bisclavret.  I will be reading it with a feminist approach, and then with an object-oriented approach.  From the feminist approach I will further consider aspects of the lai like the motives for the wife’s betrayal of Bisclavret, her representation as the sole female in the lai, the male-dominated society in Bisclavret, and Bisclavret’s brutal attack of the wife at the end of the lai.  I expect this to be a typical feminist reading of Bisclavret.

However, through the work I have been doing with the annotated bibliography, I find the feminist approach inadequate.  That is because the standard male versus female dichotomy is not all that is present in Bisclavret.  Instead, a male versus female versus werewolf division is in the works—and this is when one is considering the human only.  A feminist approach attempts to keep Bisclavret in the realm of the human, but what is human?  Is Bisclavret human?  Is he werewolf?  Or is he simply Bisclavret with all that it entails?

Those questions call in the object-oriented approach.  From the object-oriented approach I anticipate exploring questions like  “Is being human a prerequisite for being a knight?” or “Is being werewolf being human?  What does it mean to be ‘human?”  To better consider these questions I will be utilizing sources that discuss monsters and their purpose in the human realm, critical animal studies, and object-oriented studies.  I would like to explicate the idea that the werewolf experience is unique to Bisclavret, that he is not the universal werewolf, and that a strictly anthropocentric feminist reading of the lai is too limiting.

Homosocial vs. Heterosocial Knighthood

Posted on by
1

During class yesterday, one of the things that we never exactly reached a conclusion on was the question of weather these knights who are turned into wolves prefer to be in their human form or if they prefer their animal form. Using werewolf associations that we are familiar with today, we jump to the conclusion that these knights goal once their wives have entrapped them into wolf-dom one way or another is to become a man again as quickly as possible.  However, we see these werewolves quite content as being in animal form. Before they were stuck as animals, their transformations were not a painful, uncontrollable, violent danger but a three day play time in the woods, frolicking about without having to deal with human burdens and their wives. Their new allegiance is formed when they see their King and make clear their subservience, becoming incredibly close and loving with the King in a master-servant type relationship.

This leads me to the other point we spoke about in class that these lais might be insinuating that a homosocial environment is superior to a heterosocial one. These men seem the most happy when they are in their animal form and their devotion lies only with the King and they have no wife or courting to be bothered with. The relationship between the King and the werewolfs is the same as a King and his most devoted knight.

This all makes sense except that in Melion, he wants to turn his wife into a wolf as a form of punishment when her father gives her over to be punished any which way he pleases. This is the one part that seemed to upset the reasoning that these lais are promoting a homosocial environment free of women and the believed folly that comes with them. If Melion loved being a wolf, why would he want to demand that the wife that betrayed him is forced to live a life that he found so simply pleasureful?

Werewolves and Humans and Violence

Posted on by
2

In Jeffrey Cohen’s “The Werewolf’s Indifference” blog post he mentioned violence and werewolves and humans.  This was interesting to me because a lot of the violence in the werewolf stories we read was actually done by humans, not the monstrous werewolves. (I looked back through some of the werewolf posts on our blog and I didn’t see anyone tackling this subject, so I don’t think I’m stealing anyone else’s idea. Maybe we talked about it in class, and if we did, sorry I’m not giving credit where credit is due)

Jeffrey quotes Marie de France’s opening lines, “A werewolf is a savage beast: / while his fury is on him / he eats men, does much harm, / goes deep in the forest to live” and this would make the reader think that as a werewolf Bisclavret is a monster. He isn’t though; he is just wild and has some of the best times of his life as a werewolf.  In Bisclavret, and in Biclarel the humans are the ones who torture the Wife of the werewolf.  True, the werewolf gets his revenge by biting off the nose of the wife, but this is done in revenge.  To me the worst violence committed is by the king and the other humans when they torture the truth out of the wife.

It’s a bit chilling to read about this and Jeffrey’s comment on it is that “Torture compels the disfigured woman to reveal her crime, and she admits the stealing of his transfigurative clothes.” I wonder if we as readers are supposed to have indifference toward the torture and the human violence? Or should we be a little put off by it? Remember in Sir Cleges, we discussed the oddity of the violence at the end with the whipping of the three people who held Cleges up on his way to the king.  The torture and violence done by the humans toward the end of the werewolf stories is again strange.  Maybe violence by humans shouldn’t be so strange after all.

 

Agentive drift in Bisclavret

Posted on by
2

While both Bennett’s “assemblages” and Latour’s “associations” easily (almost identically) apply, Julian Yates’s “agentive drift” seems most appropriate in an ANT reading of Bisclavret. It is perhaps just a matter of diction – the draw of the word “drift.” For agentive drift has agency “dispersed or distributed” among actants – though not necessarily equally or permanently in place (it drifts from actant to actant) (48). Pivotal moments in Bisclavret are precipitated (or prevented, or at least forestalled) by different actants as different actants assume agentive priority.

At the start of the lay, Bisclavret forfeits his agency to his clothes. He is supposedly in command of himself and his humanity while dressed (“behave[ing] nobly” as he does) (18).  After shedding his clothes, though, he admits “I’d be helpless / until I got them back” (76-7). He acknowledges and accommodates the clothes’s acquired agency, taking the proper precautions to ensure that they don’t act against him (by securing them in his secret place, an effort to reinstate his control). When Bisclavret’s clothes fail to comply and disappear, he is indeed rendered helpless…for a time.

Over the course of the lay, Bisclavret finds a certain empowerment in his “helpless” condition. He is able to aggressively assault those who wrong him, and serve excellently and affectionately he who loves him – acts he could not achieve before (after all, some deficiency in their marriage must have led his wife to adultery…and some timidity or passivity must have allowed it to persist). Now presented with the clothes, “he didn’t even seem to notice them” (280). The clothes’s agency drifts right away, as Bisclavret resists them to impress the King with his modesty.  In an interesting turn of events (or agency), Bisclavret regains authority over his clothes.

Bisclavret’s Humanity?

Posted on by
1

Bisclavret changes the way we perceive human versus non-human. The monster (werewolf) in the story is not actually a “monster” at all—he is noble and loyal to the king. Even the king recognizes this, marveling at how a “beast” bows before him in respect. Interestingly, the king says that the beast’s “sense is human.” Even though a beast, he never loses his sense of dignity. He, instead, retains his humanity. The story says he acts like “a noble man,” which implies that perhaps he has not undergone a complete transformation of body and mind.

Projecting human qualities, even onto a werewolf, makes him more acceptable (and less savage), but what does that say about how we value non-humans? Non-humans are automatically imbued with a savage quality, while humans (no matter how uncivilized) are assumed to be above certain kinds of behavior. However, we then have to ask ourselves, who is portrayed as the real monster in this story? His wife, who acts selfishly throughout, is the monster, while he is the noble hero.

Although it could be argued that the beast retains his humanity, it does not explain why he seems content to leave his wife and his human existence. In fact, he is noticeably at his happiest when he is being kept like a pet by the king at the end. The king’s approval pleases him more than his wife ever did. So, does this mean that he has forsaken his humanity in favor of living as a werewolf? Like Jeffrey Cohen mentioned in class, what is so wrong with preferring the non-human over the human? It seems preposterous that he might actually want to be a werewolf for whatever reason.

How does his wife react toward him? His wife, once she finds out about his plight, demands that he return to his humanity. She pays the price for her betrayal in the violence done to her in the end, but it is questionable whether she deserves quite such a harsh fate as that. For all that the beast displays good qualities he is still a beast and understandably reacted to as something to be feared.

All in all, does he (or should he?) reconcile his animalistic impulses with the fact that he seems to retain some “human” qualities as well.

Jeffery and the Wolf

Posted on by
1

Jeffery Cohen’s visit to our class gave me a real feel for the extent to which the sort of object oriented criticism we are doing in our class is starting to take hold and that makes me feel like the things we are doing, while experimental, aren’t being done in a vacuum, which is what it feels like sometimes. He was able to ground the criticism in a real, practical context that seems to be filled with possibility for application in many sorts of fields. While I had gotten a bit of an idea for what the implications of a less anthropocentric world could be mean for political policies through Jane Bennett, hearing Mr. Cohen, a flesh and blood scholar who seems to be very interested and passionate about this field of though, talk about the lays we have been talking about was definitely something I needed to really want to try and dig deeper into these texts to try and think about them in new ways. He has a ways of relating medieval texts back to the modern world and giving the works a strong bond to the world we live in today. Looking at the past helps us better understand how we can think about the present.

Specifically the way that he talked us through Bisclavret gave me a really firm handle on how the medievalist thinks about the past in a relation to the present and not just with an eye for trying to read a text in the way a medieval reader might have. Bisclavret seems to have a kind of reverence for nature that is very much in line with the modern ecological movements, but also works as a kind of classic werewolf story that questions the hidden passions inside of a man and the possible value that can come from being true to these values. Just as a knight must adhere to strict codes of fealty, so too does Bisclavret through the story show his loyalty to the king by not only acting as a knight, but also stewarding the violence that comes with being a werewolf into an outlet that is appropriate to it, in this case vengeance, instead of attacking and killing the innocent.

The importance of trust in Bisclavret

Posted on by
1

Within the assemblage of actants in Bisclavret, trust is one of the most important, as it plays a crucial role in achieving a positive outcome for those who value it. In contrast, those who betray others’ trust are punished, sometimes in severe, eminently visible ways.

It is the wife, ironically, who outlines the integral nature of trust in a functional relationship, by reproaching her husband for keeping secrets from her: “What wrong have I done? For what sin of mine / do you mistrust me about anything?” She is right to state that “that doesn’t seem like love to me”, and Bisclavret, who sees the true value of trust, tells her the whole truth. Though his actions could have left him forever a werewolf, and nearly do, the protagonist eventually profits from having faith in others, as he no longer must live a lie. The King also places his trust in another, by choosing to believe that the wild beast he stumbles upon is rational, and will not harm him. This is an even greater act of faith than Bisclavret’s, as he has never met this potentially deadly beast before, and he is rewarded with a truly meaningful friendship. Even when the King’s trust in the werewolf is tested by attacks on the wife and her new husband, he and his men stand by the creature’s noble nature.

This is in contrast to Bisclavret’s wife, who disregards her previous statement that “I love you more than all the world” once she finds out her husband’s condition. She doesn’t trust the one she loves not to attack her, and her consequent betrayal results in her face, as well as those of her children, being permanently disfigured. She is also tortured, which is her deserved punishment for the lack of faith which she exhibits towards a person who she knows extremely well, and supposedly loves. Marie demonstrates further that this abuse of trust is the worst kind by punishing the wife’s new suitor, who knowingly helps her to betray her husband, merely with exile.

If Bisclavret’s wife had chosen to trust her husband, she could have enjoyed a happy, loving relationship for years to come. However, her lack of faith, and subsequent actions, leave her with a man she doesn’t love, and without a nose. The joyful ending which the protagonist and the King achieve shows the reward that could have been the wife’s, had she invested in the importance of trust.

The Noble Werewolf

Posted on by
1

I enjoyed this week’s reading, particularly Bisclavret.  I always enjoy when we read the medieval literary texts because I get a chance to test out OOO.

I was hooked as early as line five in Bisclavret.  As soon as I read the “old[en] days” (5) description of a werewolf I thought, “Ok!  Here we go!” (5-14).  In addition to my modern notion of a werewolf I am now equipped with the knowledge that the medieval werewolf as an object is just as gruesome, if not worse.  Seems as if Bisclavret is pretty limited in his range of actions, huh?  Eating men, unleashing fury, and hanging out in the depths of the forest.  But not so fast!  After Bisclavret’s wife has her new knight hide Bisclavret’s clothing (120-6) causing Bisclavret to be stuck as a werewolf the audience learns that this werewolf retains many of the same tendencies (16-20) he had as a nobleman (178-84).  As it turns out, werewolves aren’t as static as our definition would like for them to be.  Though the king and his men expected him to behave like a wild animal (151-7), this werewolf is noble and loved by many.

An artist on deviantart.com with the handle MelancholyTsuki created this drawing of Bisclavret.

Therefore, Bisclavret isn’t the “savage beast” (9).  Rather, I would argue, that it is his “estimable wife, / one of lovely appearance” who is the beast (21-2) here because of what she does to Bisclavret.  How interesting that while she looks worthy of respect and looks lovely she is the one who maliciously does harm while Bisclavret only attacks in vengeance. Just like with the werewolf, this is not how one would expect a pretty, noblewoman as object to act. I even hesitate to title this blogpost “The Noble Werewolf” because essentially I am discrediting the possibility of werewolves to be noble and am therefore labeling Bisclavret as an exceptional werewolf.

[Sidenote:  And isn't it interesting that werewolves are actually human as well?  Do you think it could be argued, then, that Bisclavret has such a wide range of agency (evoking both fear and loyalty) because he retains this human part?  I think that what we have been studying would argue against that and claim that any thing possesses this possibility in their agentic reach.  Bisclavret reminds me a lot of Dr. Frankenstein's creature--was anyone else reminded of the creature?]