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THE MEDIATION OF EMOTIVE SCRIPTS OF THE MEDIATION | Chloé Vondenhoff Chloé Vondenhoff Chloé Vondenhoff THE MEDIATION OF EMOTIVE SCRIPTS A Cross-Cultural Study of Poetic Imagery, Gestures, and Emotion in Chrétien de Troyes’s Yvain and its Medieval Translations THE MEDIATION OF EMOTIVE SCRIPTS A Cross-Cultural Study of Poetic Imagery, Gestures, and Emotion in Chrétien de Troyes’s Yvain and its Medieval Translations Chloé Vondenhoff 1 Copyright © Chloé Vondenhoff, Utrecht, 2021 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the author. Cover image: Detail from Iwein fresco, Rodenegg Castle, South Tyrol, early 13th century, depicting Laudîne and her courtiers bewailing their dead lord. Photo by courtesy of Prof. dr. Jozef Janssens. Cover design: Ridderprint | www.ridderprint.nl Printing: Ridderprint | www.ridderprint.nl ISBN: 978-94-6416-625-5 2 THE MEDIATION OF EMOTIVE SCRIPTS A Cross-Cultural Study of Poetic Imagery, Gestures, and Emotion in Chrétien de Troyes’s Yvain and its Medieval Translations De vertaler als bemiddelaar. Een cross-culturele studie naar de weergave van emoties in de verschillende middeleeuwse versies van het Yvain-verhaal (met een samenvatting in het Nederlands) Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Universiteit Utrecht op gezag van de rector magnificus, prof.dr. H.R.B.M. Kummeling, ingevolge het besluit van het college voor promoties in het openbaar te verdedigen op vrijdag 11 juni 2021 des middags te 2.15 uur door Chloé Henrica Anna Gerarda Vondenhoff geboren op 19 januari 1988 te Heerlen 3 Promotoren: Prof.dr. A.A.M. Besamusca Prof.dr. S. Ríkharðsdóttir Copromotor: Dr. F.P.C. Brandsma The degree is awarded as part of a Joint Doctorate with the University of Iceland. Dit proefschrift werd (mede) mogelijk gemaakt met financiële steun van the University of Iceland Research Fund en the Icelandic Research Fund (Rannís). 4 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................... 7 Defining Emotion ................................................................................................................. 10 Literary Emotionality ........................................................................................................... 16 Emotive Script (Methodology and Approach) ..................................................................... 20 Chrétien’s Influence ............................................................................................................. 26 Yvain ................................................................................................................................ 29 Iwein ................................................................................................................................. 34 Ívens saga ......................................................................................................................... 39 Hærra Ivan ....................................................................................................................... 48 Ywain and Gawain ........................................................................................................... 51 Source and Translation ........................................................................................................ 55 Lost in Translation: Translation, Adaptation, Reworking? ................................................. 62 The Translator as Mediator of Literary Cultures ................................................................ 68 Research Question and Set-Up ............................................................................................ 72 CHAPTER ONE: MEDIATING POETIC IMAGERY Matter(s) of the Heart in Yvain and Ívens saga ......................................................................................................................... 75 Heart-Imagery in French Courtly Romance ........................................................................ 78 Heart-Imagery in the Old Norse-Icelandic Saga Tradition ................................................. 82 Semantic Profiles ................................................................................................................. 87 Perception Model ................................................................................................................. 98 The Heart-Eyes Motif ......................................................................................................... 110 The Itinerant Heart Motif ................................................................................................... 124 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 131 CHAPTER TWO: MEDIATING PERFORMATIVE ACTION AND SPEECH Reconciling Lovers in Yvain and Iwein .............................................................................. 137 Gestures in Medieval Society and Literature ..................................................................... 139 The Knee-Fall .................................................................................................................... 142 Iwein’s B-Redaction ........................................................................................................... 144 Individual Offence .............................................................................................................. 148 Mutual Responsibility ........................................................................................................ 152 Enite’s Knee-Fall ............................................................................................................... 159 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 169 CHAPTER THREE: MEDIATING IMAGES OF COLLECTIVE EMOTION The Construction of the Communal Feeling in Yvain, Ívens saga and Ywain and Gawain ... 172 Arrival Scenes .................................................................................................................... 175 Positive Emotions ............................................................................................................... 176 Negative Emotions ............................................................................................................. 191 Mixed Emotions ................................................................................................................. 209 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 223 5 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................... 227 BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................................ 236 APPENDIX ........................................................................................................................... 274 Synopsis .............................................................................................................................. 274 Images ................................................................................................................................ 279 NEDERLANDSE SAMENVATTING ............................................................................... 281 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................ 288 CURRICULUM VITAE ...................................................................................................... 291 6 INTRODUCTION ‘One of the virtues of studying Arthurian literature is that it provides an ample and coherent matter in which to chart developments in the narrative articulation of emotion over many languages, cultures, genres and centuries’, is what medievalist Andrew Lynch concludes in his introduction to a cluster of articles on positive emotions in Arthurian romance.1 Indeed, emotion plays a significant role in Arthurian romances and seems to be a major feature of these narratives. Originating within the context of late twelfth century court life, the Arthurian romance has been found to reflect the contemporary refinement of sentiment and to echo corresponding emotional codes. That is why the study of literary emotion is a thriving subject area within Arthurian studies, a field of research that since the ‘affective turn’ has greatly contributed to the history of emotion.2 The Arthurian corpus created by the northern French court poet Chrétien de Troyes has particular comparative potential for a cross-cultural study of the narrative articulation of emotion. Not only do his romances contain explicit verbalisations and gesticulations of emotions that have a high emotive potential for their audiences, they were moreover adopted into multiple European literary traditions. Chrétien’s Yvain ou le chevalier au lion (c. 1170– 1190) especially offers a suitable textual sample for a comparative study of emotion and narration, since it was translated into diverse vernaculars relatively shortly after being composed. Correspondences and deviations in the literary representation of emotion can 1 ‘Positive Emotions in Arthurian Romance: Introduction’, Journal of the International Arthurian Society 4.1 (2016), 53–57, at 57. 2 Broadly defined, the so-called ‘affective