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Yvain-Corpus ‘Cuer me rendés…’ THE EMOTIONAL INVOLVEMENT OF THE CONTEMPORARY AUDIENCE IN THE YVAIN-CORPUS Master thesis RMA Medieval Studies by Chloé Vondenhoff Utrecht University, 08-02-2013 Student number: 3168662 Supervisor, first reader: Dr. F.P.C. Brandsma Second reader: Dr. A. Auer Word count: 35263 2 Table of Contents 1 INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 3 1.1 EMOTION RESEARCH ....................................................................................................... 5 1.2 RESEARCH QUESTION .................................................................................................... 12 2 METHODOLOGY ........................................................................................................... 14 2.1 APPROACH .................................................................................................................... 14 2.2 METHODOLOGICAL COMMENTS .................................................................................... 16 2.3 YVAIN–CORPUS ............................................................................................................ 23 3 EPISODE I: THE PRELUDE ......................................................................................... 40 3.1 PROLOGUE .................................................................................................................... 40 3.2 CALOGRENANT’S TALE ................................................................................................. 48 3.3 THE WICKED SENESCHAL ............................................................................................. 55 3.4 THE WILD HERDSMAN .................................................................................................. 62 3.5 CONCLUSION EPISODE I ................................................................................................ 70 4 EPISODE IV: BECOMING THE KNIGHT WITH THE LION. ............................... 74 4.1 A LION AS A COMPANION ............................................................................................. 74 4.2 LUNETE’S CAPTIVITY ................................................................................................... 77 4.3 THE BATTLE WITH HARPIN THE GIANT ......................................................................... 81 4.4 LUNETE’S RESCUE ........................................................................................................ 86 4.5 CONCLUSION EPISODE IV ............................................................................................. 88 5 EPISODE VII: THE CLOSE .......................................................................................... 92 5.1 RECONCILIATION SCENE ............................................................................................... 92 5.2 MATURATION PROCESS ................................................................................................ 93 5.3 LAUDINE’S ‘KNIEFALL’: HIERARCHICAL LOVE VERSUS EQUAL LOVE .......................... 101 5.4 LUNETE’S INDEPENDENT AGENCY .............................................................................. 103 5.5 CONCLUSION EPISODE VII .......................................................................................... 106 6 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................... 109 6.1 MAIN FINDINGS ........................................................................................................... 109 6.2 ADDITIONAL FINDINGS ............................................................................................... 118 7 BIBLIOGRAPHY .......................................................................................................... 124 8 APPENDIX: NARRATIVE TECHNIQUES ............................................................... 130 3 1 Introduction ‘Cuer me rendés…’ [‘Lend me your hearts….’ ] This request is made by one of Chrétien de Troyes’s leading characters in the story of Yvain or the Knight with the Lion. Calogrenant, one of Arthur’s knights, is about to commence his tale of shame. In an attempt to guide his audience in their listening experience, Calogrenant is asking them to lend him their hearts, “for words that are not understood by the heart are lost completely” (150–3). These lines support the little evidence we have today to underline the importance of emotions in medieval romance. Calogrenant’s emphasis on the use of the heart when interpreting a story, suggests the importance, recognised at least by Chrétien, of emotions in medieval literature. Like the above–mentioned example of narratorial intrusion, Chrétien deploys many narrative techniques to guide his audience in their reception of Yvain. Although Chrétien’s mastery of these techniques is evident in all his romances, their exploitation in Yvain mainly serves to emphasise the emotional experience of the story. He uses many of these narrative techniques to appeal to the readers’/listeners’ emotions and to guide them in their emotional response. Therefore, the aim of this study is to examine these narrative techniques and investigate how they brought about the emotional involvement of the contemporary audience. Although many different interpretations of Yvain have been presented over the years, few contain an emotional reading of the text. This investigation, however, will focus on such an emotional reading. What is more, the emotional reading presented in this thesis will be comparative. Yvain has many translations. The story has been adapted into Middle High 4 German, Old Norse, Old Swedish and Middle English. Although research comparing the narrative configurations of the individual translations with their French source has been carried out, these mostly concern either the German or the English rewriting. None of these studies has extended this comparison by discussing all the versions involved.1 However, since these adaptations show remarkable fidelity to their French source, the narrative techniques deployed in these adaptations and the emotions emphasised by them, are also of importance to this study. By investigating these narrative techniques for Yvain’s rewritings, we can gather information on the adaptors’ reception of (the emotions in) Chretien’s text and on the way they themselves involved their audience emotionally. For this reason, I will be exploring and comparing the narrative techniques deployed to bring about the emotional involvement of the contemporary audience in all the texts of the Yvain–corpus. This thesis will firstly present a chapter on emotion research. In this chapter, I will address the history of emotion research and its current developments. My investigation will also be assigned a place in this vast field of study. Secondly, the methodology for this investigation will be discussed. In this discussion, I will elaborate on my approach and on the methodological difficulties that are inherent to this study. Moreover, I will give the tradition of the transmission of the Yvain-texts and a summary of the texts involved. This introductory exposition will be followed by three analytic chapters. In these chapters, I will interpret and compare the narrative techniques deployed by Chrétien and his adaptors to bring about the audience’s emotional involvement. Lastly, I will present the conclusion, in which I will give the findings for my main research question. This conclusion will also present additional findings which contribute to this study as well. 1 Sif Rickhardsdottir’s recent publication on “The narrative transformations in the Old Norse and Middle English Versions of Le Chevalier au Lion (or Yvain)”, however, does discuss three of the five texts involved in the Yvain–corpus. See Rikhardsdottir (2012). 5 Next to providing Arthurian Studies with an intertextual study on all the versions of the Yvain–story, this investigation aims to contribute to the rapidly growing field of emotion research. 1.1 Emotion research Within the last thirty years, emotions have become a popular research topic in disciplines as diverse as anthropology, (neuro)biology, sociology, philosophy and even the arts. These fields of research have focused on questions like whether emotions are culturally determined, natural and/or universal. Each discipline adheres to different theories on and definitions of the emotions. It will be too time–consuming to list all these theories and definitions. I will, however, give insight into the development of emotion research in general. Moreover, I will ascribe my thesis a place in the vast field of studies on emotions. 1.1.1 Development of emotion research Since time immemorial, the (nature of) emotions have been food for thought. Ancient and medieval texts on this topic that have survived until today mostly belonged to philosophical thinkers or Church fathers. One of the first to write about emotions was Aristotle. He discussed the nature of emotions in his works Nicomachean Ethics and Ars Rhetorica.2 The Roman philosopher Seneca, a follower of Stoicism, is also an important source on the emotions. Both Aristotle and Seneca were particularly interested in the voluntary nature of the emotions. In The City of God (Book 9.4–5 and throughout Book 14), Augustine also offered a lengthy discussion of the emotions. He built on Aristotle’s and Seneca’s thoughts, but at the same time broke with the classical tradition. His discussion was directed against Stoicism and, 2 See: Stephen
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