WOMAN and LOVE in MEDIEVAL COURTLY LITERATURE: the REAL and the FICTIONAL

DOĞUS UNIVERSITY Institute of Social Sciences MA in English Literature WOMAN and LOVE in MEDIEVAL COURTLY LITERATURE: the REAL and the FICTIONAL MA THESIS Evren Birkan 200689007 Advisor: Prof. Dr. Dilek Doltaş Istanbul, 2011 i TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS..………………………………………………………………….….ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...………………………………………………………………....iv ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………………………………....v ÖZET…………………………………………...……………………….…………………….vi INTRODUCTION..……………………………………………………...…………………….1 CHAPTER 1. Arabs and the West I. The Encounter of Cultures Through Translations….…….…………………….4 II. History of Al-Andalus..……………………...……………………………........5 CHAPTER 2. The Concept of Love in Hispano-Arabic Poetry I. Form and Content of Hispano-Arabic Poetry…..…...………….……..………12 A. Ibn Hazm ..…………………………………………………….………14 B. Ibn Quzman……………………………………………………………21 C. Ibn Arabi…………………………………………….…………………26 II. Dante and Love ……………………………………………………………….33 CHAPTER 3. The State of the Woman and the Conception of Love in Medieval Europe I. Feudalism and Woman in the Middle Ages...…...……………………………36 II. Marriage and Courtly Love in Twelfth Century Europe………..……….……40 III. The Knight and the Church….……………………………………..…………42 IV. Troubadours and Secular Love……………………………………….……….44 V. The Image of the Courtly Lady in Troubadour Poetry………………………..44 VI. The Art of Courtly Love: Medieval Facts and Fictional Conventions…...........48 CHAPTER 4. Chivalric Romance and Courtly Love in Medieval England I. The Lady in Life and Fiction...……..…...………….………………….…...…52 II. Geoffrey Chaucer and the Medieval Conception of love…………….….……53 A. The Canterbury Tales……………………………….………...……. 57 1. General Prologue………………………………..….……………57 2. The Knight’s Tale..................………………………………....….59 a. Courtly Love and Woman in The Knight’s Tale................60 b. Emily and Courtly Love in The Knight’s Tale...................67 III. Sir Thomas Malory, Chivalric Romance and Courtly Love.............................72 ii A. King Arthur in History, Legends and Literature....................................73 B. Malory‟s Sources....................................................................................74 C. Le Morte Darthur...................................................................................75 D. Women and Love in Le Morte Darthur..................................................77 1. Courtly Love Leading to Marriage: Sir Gareth and Dame Lyonesse……………………………...…………………...78 2. Courtly Love and Adultery: Lancelot and Guenivere...….80 CONCLUSION …………………….………………………………………..………….……87 WORKS CITED …………………………………………………….…………...…………..89 BIOGRAPHY ……………………………………………………………....………………..95 iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my appreciation to all those who trusted in me backed me in the writing of this thesis. First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to Prof. Dr. Dilek Doltaş for her invaluable assistance, support and guidance in the completion of this thesis. Special thanks are due to Assist. Prof. Dr. Mine Özyurt Kılıç for the encouragement she gave me at my most difficult moments, Dr. Kılıç was also the supervisor of the first draft of the thesis. I am of course deeply grateful to my family for their incessant understanding and support. They pushed me onwards, heartened me and assisted me not only in my time of need but throughout the researching and writing of this thesis. iv ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to examine the formal and thematic interaction of the poetry of medieval Arabs with Western literature through the Troubadour poets in France. In the love poetry of Arabs, where divine love is the central theme, the poet‟s muse is sometimes described as an unattainable divine being, sometimes as a very beautiful woman with earthly qualities. This attitude to woman observed in the poems of Arab writers has had a significant influence, firstly on the Troubadour poets of Southern France, then through the French and the Italian writers on the English. In tracing this influence the present study also tries to draw attention on the paradoxes and dilemmas inherent in the presentation of courtly love and the image of the woman which arise from the unrealistic conditions of life in medieval Europe. In medieval Christian societies “woman” was seen either as Eve, the temptress to be avoided by men or as Virgin Mary, the unreal, unattainable noble and virgin lady who could not be a wife and a beloved but a divinity to be adored. The present study argues that the courtly love poetry that had its sources in Arabic and Troubadour poems foregrounds the irreconcilability of fact and fiction concerning the medieval European man‟s approach to the concepts of love and the “woman”. In building this argument the study will analyze first the love poetry of three early medieval Arab poets namely: Ibn Hazm, Ibn Quzman and Ibn Arabi, who are considered the leading figures of Arabic literature; and then The Knight’s Tale of Geoffrey Chaucer and Le Morte Darthur of Thomas Malory as the two most well-known chivalric love romances of British medieval literature. v ÖZET Bu çalışmanın amacı, Ortaçağ Arap şiirinin Fransa‟daki Troubadour şairleri aracılığıyla, Batı edebiyatı ile olan etkileşimini teknik ve konu bakımından incelemektir. Arap aşk şiirlerindeki ana tema ilahi aşktır. Şaire ilham veren kadın figürü bazen ulaşılmaz ilahi bir varlık, bazen de dünyevi özelliklere sahip güzel bir kadın olarak tasvir edilir. Aşk ve kadın tasvirinin konu olduğu Arap edebiyatının bu özelliklerinin, ilk olarak Güney Fransa‟daki Troubadour şairleri, sonrasında ise Fransa aracılığı ile İtalyan ve son olarak da İngiliz yazarları üzerinde önemli etkileri görülmektedir. Bu çalışma aynı zamanda, Ortaçağ Avrupa‟sındaki yaşam koşulları ve „courtly love‟ şiirlerindeki kadın imajının tasviri arasındaki ikilem ve çelişkilere de dikkat çekmeye çalışır. Ortaçağ Hıristiyan toplumunda kadın hem erkeklerin kaçındığı baştan çıkarıcı Havva, hem de, eş veya sevgili olmaktan uzak, ulaşılmaz kutsal bakire Meryem olarak görülürdü. Ortaçağ Avrupa‟sı erkeklerinin gerçek ve kurgusal düzlemlerde kadın ve aşk anlayışlarının bu zıtlığı, kaynağında Arap ve Troubadour şiirlerini barındıran „courtly love‟ şiirleri sayesinde gözler önüne serilmektedir. Bu tartışmayı oluştururken, öncelikle Ortaçağ Arap şiir edebiyatının önde gelen temsilcileri olan üç farklı şair; Ibn Hazm, Ibn Quzman ve Ibn Arabi‟nin aşk temalı şiirleri incelenecek ve sonrasında Ortaçağ İngiliz romans edebiyatının önemli eserleri arasında yer alan Geoffrey Chaucer‟ın Şövalyenin Hikâyesi ve Sir Thomas Malory‟nin Arthur’un Ölümü ele alınacaktır. vi 1 INTRODUCTION The aim of this thesis is two-fold. First it tries to show that Troubadour poetry, as the predecessor of the courtly love tradition in Europe, plays a major role in the conceptualization of love in the literature of Europe in the following ages, and that the Western understanding of love was modelled to a great extent after the love poetry of the Arabic poets of Al-Andalus. Spanish Orientalist, Julian Ribera (1858-1934) is among the pioneers of this argument. Roger Boase in his book The Origin and Meaning of Courtly Love refers to Ribera‘s ideas and says, ―Ribera maintained that the principle of Troubadour music was learnt from the Arabs‖ (1977, 29); by this, he is referring merely to melody and rhythm. In another source, Boase again quotes the Spanish scholar saying ―the word trobar might derive from the Arabic verb taraba, [which means] to sing to play music; to be moved by joy of grief; to fill with delight‖ (1994, 458). Secondly, by analyzing relevant sections of the poetry of major Arabic writers of the period, The Knight’s Tale of Geoffrey Chaucer, and Le Morte Darthur of Sir Thomas Malory, the thesis seeks to display the paradoxes and contradictions inherent in the expression of divine and secular love and the role of the woman in the courtly love literature of medieval Europe. Arabic love poetry is a tradition that predates Islam but it is enriched through its contact with Islamic mysticism. After the conquest of the Iberian Peninsula by the Arabs the cultural exchange between the East and the West contributed to the multidimensional perspective and vision of religious mysticism Islamic and Christian alike. Major works of Arabic verse especially those produced between the ninth and the twelfth centuries point to the powerful influence of Islamic mysticism on the love poetry of Arabic writers. Among the most prominent Arabic poets is Ibn Hazm, whose book The Ring of the Dove is about love and its effects on the soul. Ibn Quzman who wrote his Diwan at the height of Arab governance in Al-Andalus has a special place in the literature of Al-Andalus. He was both the pioneer of a new form of strophic poetry, which was later used by the Troubadours and a wandering poet singing his poetry in knightly courts again like his successors, the Troubadours. Then comes the mystic philosopher and poet Ibn Arabi who immortalized his passion for his imaginary beloved in his book, The Interpreter of Desires. Central to the poetry of these Arabic poets is their preoccupation with ‗love‘ and ‗female beauty‘. Ibn Hazm venerates woman in his love poems. For him the feminine figure is divine. He 2 expresses his love in terms of divine love. Ibn Quzman also glorifies his beloved in his poems but unlike Ibn Hazm, his descriptions of women are more earthly than divine. Although the style and language of Ibn Arabi from time to time gives the impression of one expressing earthly love, his main focus is always the love of God. Arabi describes

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