Between Mars and Venus: Balance and Excess in the Chivalry Of
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BETWEEN MARS AND VENUS: BALANCE AND EXCESS IN THE CHIVALRY OF THE LATE-MEDIEVAL ENGLISH ROMANCE A Dissertation by ILAN MITCHELL-SMITH Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY May 2005 Major Subject: English BETWEEN MARS AND VENUS: BALANCE AND EXCESS IN THE CHIVALRY OF THE LATE-MEDIEVAL ENGLISH ROMANCE A Dissertation by ILAN MITCHELL-SMITH Submitted to Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Approved as to style and content by: ____________________________ ____________________________ Jennifer Goodman-Wollock Clint Machann (Chair of Committee) (Member) ____________________________ ____________________________ Robert Boenig James Rosenheim (Member) (Member) _____________________________ Paul Parrish (Head of Department) May 2005 Major Subject: English iii ABSTRACT Between Mars and Venus: Balance and Excess in the Chivalry of the Late-Medieval Romance. (May 2005) Ilan Mitchell-Smith, B.A., University of California at Davis; M.A., Fordham University Chair of Advisory Committee: Dr. Jennifer Goodman Wollock This dissertation is a study of how late-medieval romances construe ideal chivalric masculinity, and how aristocratic male violence was integrated into a beneficial model for masculine behavior. The focus is on the "fair unknown" romances of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, and the final chapter reads Chaucer's "Knight's Tale" as thematically related to the "fair unknown" tradition in its treatment of chivalry and violence. By contrasting the masculine ideal of the romance with that of the chivalric epic, this study approaches chivalry in terms of multiple and competing models, and finds that, unlike the epic, the ideal of the romance was informed by the growing popularization of university-based philosophy and cosmology. Between Mars and Venus argues that the most significant point of departure that the chivalric romance makes from the epic is its characterization of chivalric masculinity as a moderated avoidance of extreme behavior. Animalistic and monstrous references to knightly violence in the romance often result from episodes in which the knight has been overly amorous or courtly. By identifying both extremely amorous and extremely iv aggressive behavior in terms of oppositional poles on a spectrum of excess, this study reads ideal masculinity as the mediated balance between the two extremes. The connection between the production of romances and the philosophy of the universities offers an explanation of chivalric masculinity in terms of Aristotelian virtue - as a mean between excess and deficiency of prowess. This reading of chivalric violence avoids the anachronistic assumptions of stereotypical male aggression that many critics rely on. By avoiding these assumptions, this dissertation offers a reworking of the feminine/masculine binary into a paradigm of competing masculinities, which is more attuned to the intellectual and philosophical contexts of late-medieval literary production. v DEDICATION For Susannah vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………………… iii DEDICATION……………………………………………………………………… v TABLE OF CONTENTS……………………………………………………............ vi CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION……………..……….………………………………….... 1 II MASCULINITY AND VIOLENCE...……………………………………… 7 III THE TOURNAMENT AND THE PROBLEMATIC DEFINITION OF CHIVALRY ………………………………………………………………… 26 IV CHIVALRIC MASCULINITY IN THE EARLY ROMANCE – THE CASE OF EREC ET ENIDE …...……………................................................ 55 V CHIVALRIC MASCULINITY IN THE LATER ROMANCE: THE GENDERING OF SPACE IN LIBEAUS DESCONUS……….…………….. 88 VI MASCULINITY AND VIOLENCE IN CHAUCER'S KNIGHT'S TALE …...……………………………………………...….……. 120 VII CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………… 157 NOTES………………………………………………………………………………. 163 WORKS CITED…….………………………………………...…….……………...... 199 VITA…………………………………………………………………………………. 208 1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION This dissertation is a study of how late-medieval romances construe ideal chivalric masculinity, and how aristocratic male violence is integrated or refuses integration into this model. The focus deals largely with the two "fair unknown" romances Erec et Enide and Libeaus Desconus, but this reliance on the fair unknown tradition is in service to the larger project, which is to excavate a perception of ideal chivalric behavior that is evident in a large number of romances throughout the high and late medieval periods. The study touches on a wide historical period but does so with an awareness that the Middle Ages were characterized by significant changes, and so the attempt throughout has been to avoid generalities in favor of specifically situated readings following one trend in the literary treatment of chivalry. Following recent tendencies in the study of gender, this dissertation approaches the question of masculinity in terms of multiple and competing models for male behavior, and focuses on one specific model, which seems to have emerged in the twelfth century and to have developed largely through the romance tradition of the later medieval period. Unlike the masculine model of the epic that preceded it, the chivalric ideal that emerges in the romance tradition seems to praise martial ability but to criticize martial displays when they are excessive and extreme. Likewise, whereas the knight of the epic tradition This dissertation follows the style of Speculum. 2 is open to charges of effeminacy if associated with women and the court, such association is necessary for the hero of the romance. Excessive courtliness, however, is criticized as well, so that the resulting model is one in which martial and courtly behavior both define the knight's identity, but excessiveness in either of these behaviors complicates it. Furthermore, when knights succumb to excess in these narratives, their behavior is depicted in terms of animalistic savagery and irrational aggression, connecting the idea of moderated avoidance of excess to the realm of reason and rationality. The differentiation between the divine rational soul and the animalistic temporal body is an element of the university-based cosmology that was becoming widespread in roughly the same period as the romance. This perception of mind/body interaction also has clear connections to more populist theories of human health and psychology, such as humoral medicine and astrology, which treat the fluids of the body or the influence of planets (respectively) as immoderate urges that require continual moderating by the rational soul. These theories are often examined in studies of medieval health and philosophy, but critics seldom consider them in relation to more popular literary forms such as romances. Between Mars and Venus argues that the most significant point of departure that the chivalric romance makes from the epic is its characterization of chivalric masculinity as a moderated avoidance of extreme behavior. Descriptions of animalistic and/or insane knightly behavior in romances (most clearly in the fair unknown tradition) often result from episodes in which the knight has been overly martial or overly courtly. By identifying both extremely amorous and extremely aggressive behavior in terms of oppositional poles on a spectrum of excess, this study reads ideal masculinity as the 3 mediated balance between the two extremes. Possible connections between the production of romances and the philosophy of the universities offers an explanation of chivalric masculinity in terms of Aristotelian virtue - as a mean between excess and deficiency of prowess. This reading of chivalric violence avoids the anachronistic assumptions of stereotypical male aggression that many critics rely on in their shared assumption that chivalry was, in essence, a cult of prowess. By re-imagining the way that violence and chivalry interact in the romance, this dissertation offers a reworking of the feminine/masculine binary into a triune paradigm of reasoned masculinity moderating between oppositional excessive and bestial masculinities, which is more attuned to the intellectual and philosophical contexts of the late-medieval worldview. The first chapter of the dissertation offers a critical survey of the intersecting bibliographies of medieval masculinity studies and critical treatments of violence in the Middle Ages. Despite a historicist shift in this scholarship (as seen in the work of scholars such as Susan Crane, D.M. Hadley and Jody Enders), there is a persistent reliance on the masculine/feminine binary as a universal descriptor for gendered behavior. Resulting from this reliance, chivalry has largely been considered only in terms of its aggressive and martial character. This chapter explores a masculine ideal that is not characterized in opposition to femininity, but in opposition to excessive and faulty forms of masculinity. By doing so, it interprets chivalry as a preferred form of masculine activity along a spectrum of male behavior. The second chapter reads changes in the chivalric tournament tradition as exemplifying a widespread cultural shift in the perception of chivalric masculinity. Pointing out previously ignored points of contact between the evolution of the 4 tournament, the emergence of Aristotelianism in the growing universities, and a new perception of identity (which some scholars have misread as an emergent individualism), this chapter unearths a major shift in the perceptions of knighthood from the late-twelfth