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Task4n.docxTask 4. Arabian Nights Study Guide
WORLD LITERATURE I
TASK 4. Read through the Arabian Nights Study Guide. This will give you background information on the Muslim world of the Arabian Nights and the frame stories.
Option: You may choose to watch the Nights Video instead. It contains the same information. https://www.learner.org/series/invitation-to-world-literature/the-thousand-and-one-nights/ (Links to an external site.)
Task Four: Arabian Nights Study Guide
By Diane Thompson, NVCC, ELI
THE WORLD OF THE ARABIAN NIGHTS
The stories come from India, Persia and Arabia; there are even stories from China, such as Aladdin, in some editions. These stories all reflect the enormous, highly civilized Islamic world of the ninth to thirteenth centuries. It stretched from Spain across North Africa to Cairo, across the Arabian peninsula, up to Damascus and Baghdad, further north to Samarkand, across what is now Afghanistan, down into India, and beyond. Many of the people in this huge area shared a religion, Islam, a religious language, the Arabic of the Koran, and many cultural elements which derived from the Koranic culture of Islam and its seventh century roots in the Arabian peninsula, now mostly Saudi Arabia.
A traveler could wander across this huge region speaking Arabic, sharing in a familiar culture, studying and praying in mosques, and trading with fellow Muslims. A wonderful travel book was written by Ibn Battuta in the fourteenth century recording his travels of about 77,000 miles, from Morocco across North Africa, through Arabia, up through Persia, the Steppes of Central Asia, across what is now Afghanistan, through India, perhaps up to China, and back again in many slow loops. Ibn Battuta, the Arabic Marco Polo, was able to travel all this distance almost entirely within the sphere of Islamic culture.
THE VARIETY OF THE ARABIAN NIGHTS
The Arabian Nights is hugely various, like the lands it came from, and it is jam-packed with spiritual as well as earthly values. It includes information on what life is like and how to live it in a world full of tyrannical as well as good rulers, magicians and witches, good and bad jinnis (or demons), plentiful sex, lots of violence and mystical spiritual quests.
The Arabian Nights are not just Arabic, but Persian and Indian as well, so perhaps a better name for them is simply The Nights, one of the world's great collections of stories. The Nights are a wonderful example of Folk literature and how it develops, through the telling and retelling of stories over a long period of time. There were many creators of these stories, many re-tellers, and many rewriters. There are, consequently, many different texts of the Nights, and stories were added to the Nights for many centuries. The stories are called the Thousand and One Nights to express the idea of a large number, not necessarily exactly 1001.
FRAME STORIES OF THE ARABIAN NIGHTS
The stories in the Nights are like a complex set of interlocking arguments and examples, each fitting more or less well into its frame and doing a more or less successful job of proving its point as well as entertaining. The main frame creates the setting and motivation for all the stories contained in the Nights:
1. Two brother kings, Shahrayar and Shahzaman
1. Shahzaman is cuckolded by his wife
1. Shahrayar is cuckolded by his wife.
1. They travel until they meet the Jinni (demon) who keeps his wife locked up in a glass chest, yet she still manages to cuckold him.
1. They return to their kingdoms and Shahrayar has his wife killed, and vows to marry a new wife each night and kill her the next morning, so she can't cheat on him.
1. Shahrazad tells her father she will marry Shahrayar.
1. Father tells her The Tale of the Ox and the Donkey to dissuade her. Not successful.
2. Father tells her The Tale of the Merchant and His Wife to dissuade her. Not successful.
1. Shahrazad marries Shahrayar, and arranges for her sister, Dinarzad, to ask her to tell a story to pass the night. This story, and many more, will save her and deliver the people.
1. Story of the Merchant and the Demon
1. Story of the First Old Man and the Deer
1. Story of the Second Old Man and Two Dogs
1. Story of the Third Old Man.
These three stories are successful and persuade the demon to release the merchant.
2. Story of the Fisherman. And so on until eventually the King forgives women, accepts his marriage to Shahrazad as permanent, and all live happily ever after. The stories have been successful in curing the King and saving the people.
TEXTS AND VERSIONS OF THE NIGHTS
Because the Nights developed out of an oral tradition, there are many texts and versions of the Nights available. If you wish to read more than is included in the Norton Anthology, the best current translation is that by Haddawy, which is also published by Norton. Although the Haddawy translation includes only a small portion of the total stories sometimes found in editions of the Nights, the translation is new, attractive, has a good introduction, and avoids the ugly racism of the more standard nineteenth century Richard Burton translation. The Burton translation, although it includes many more stories, is so marred by the racial stereotyping in it, that I cannot recommend it. You may, if you wish, read one of the editions translated by Burton instead of the Haddawy version, but be warned, it is indeed racist in its negative stereotyped descriptions of black people.
THE ISSUE OF RACE IN THE NIGHTS
In the Arabic stories of the Nights, as opposed to the Burton translation, the issue of race is not that of modern racism. Although it does seem that when a woman has illicit sex, it is with a black slave, and some bad jinnis are black, there are also plenty of white slaves in the stories and jinnis come in various colors. Indeed, the mystic color symbolism of some Islamic Sufis includes Black Light as the second most sacred color, only exceeded by emerald, the color of Eternal Life.
Historically, there were plenty of black non-slaves who had positions of importance in the Muslim world of the Nights. Further, the children of a man and his slaves or concubines were free citizens and potential heirs, regardless of color. The son of a king and his black slave concubine could become the next king. So, although the Nights describe a world that includes slavery and some negative images about blacks, these need to be examined in the context of the Nights, not as if they were expressions of modern western values, while no such explanation is adequate for the Burton translation.
ROLES OF WOMEN IN THE NIGHTS
The roles of women in the Nights are especially interesting. On the one hand, there are many female slaves and concubines who must obey the men who own them. On the other hand, it is the courage and wit of Shahrazad that heals the King's insane distrust of women and saves the remaining virgins of her city from being killed. There are faithful women and faithless women, magical women and silly women. Their many roles and kinds are not those of the modern western world, but they have their own strengths and weaknesses and deserve to be looked at for what they are, not simply as victims of men who control them, although that too is a factor.
THE POWER OF KINGS IN THE NIGHTS
The power of kings and other rulers in the Nights is frightening. Shahrayar is able to marry and kill a new virgin each night for as long as he pleases. As ruler, he makes the rules, and no one can oppose him and survive. There is not the least suggestion of democratic representation; this is a world where the ruler, in a sense, OWNS the land and people he rules. The king can save or kill the people, give away lands and their inhabitants, claim young women as his wives and concubines, in short, do whatever he pleases, while his subjects can either agree or keep silent.
THE STORY OF THE FRAME OF THE NIGHTS
There are two brothers, Shahrayar and Shahzaman. Shahrayar rules India and Indo-China, and he gives Samarkand to his younger brother, Shahzaman, to rule. After Shahzaman has been in Samarkand for ten years, his older brother, Shahrayar longs to see him, so he sends his Visier (his chief administrator) to his brother to ask him to come and visit.
The Visier travels to Samarkand to invite Shahzaman to visit his brother in India. The Visier camps with his retinue outside the city. King Shahzaman goes to the camp to visit with the Visier, BUT, unknown to his wife, the Queen, he returns to his palace in the middle of the night. Shahzaman finds his Queen in bed with the cook, and becomes so enraged that he kills them both with his sword. He says nothing of this to anyone, and leaves with the Visier to visit his brother, Shahrayar.
One day, while Shahrayar is out hunting, Shahzaman stays in the palace feeling very depressed about his dead wife. He looks out at the garden and sees his brother's wife enter the garden with twenty slave girls, ten white and ten black. They undress and prove to be ten men and ten women, who proceed to have sex together, while another slave, Mas'ud, jumps down from a tree when the Queen calls to him and they have sex. Then they all re-garb as slave girls, except for Mas'ud who jumps back over the wall and is gone.
Shahzaman marvels that his fate is not so bad as his brother's, and consequently he feels much better.
When Shahrayar returns, he notices that his brother is more cheerful and asks why. Shahzaman tells him and Shahrayar insists on seeing his Queen deceiving him. This is done and he is enraged and suggests to his brother that they leave the kingdom and seek a lover who is even MORE unfortunate than they are. Only if they find him will they return home.
They travel to the sea shore where they hear a great commotion. A black pillar emerges from the sea until it touches the clouds. It is a huge demon carrying a glass chest locked with four padlocks. The demon wades to shore and stops under the tree where the two brothers are hiding. He unlocks the glass chest and pulls out a beautiful woman. He places her under the tree, puts his head in her lap, and goes to sleep. The woman looks up and notices the two kings hiding in the tree. She gestures to them to come down or she will wake the demon. Then she insists they make love to her or she will wake the demon. Afterwards, she takes a ring from each brother to add to her collection of 98 rings from 98 other lovers. This shows her scorn for the demon who has not realized that he cannot control what is pre-destined, or stop a woman from satisfying her desires.
This is indeed worse than the two brothers' situations, so they return to their kingdoms. Shahrayar has his Queen killed and he personally kills all his slave girls. He then swears to marry a new woman each night and have her killed the next day, so she will not be able to betray him. And this is just what he does for quite a while.
Shahrazad tells her father, the Vizier, that she wants to marry the king and try to save more women from being killed. Her father gets very angry and says that what happened to the donkey and the ox will happen to her. And what is that, she asks?
Now the Vizier tells the first sub-story of the Nights, to convince Shahrazad that she should not marry the king. This sub-story is about a donkey that persuaded an ox to stop feeding and act sick in order to avoid working. Unfortunately for the donkey, the ox's owner, a merchant, understood animal language and tricked the donkey by making him do the ox's work, so the donkey suffered while the ox had an easy life. This is not a very close analogy to Shahrazad's situation, so she rejects the moral of the story and insists that she must marry the king.
The Visier then warns her that unless she desists from her plan, he'll do to her what the merchant did to his wife. Shahrazad asks, what was that? This introduces the second substory. When the merchant's wife realizes he understands animal language, she INSISTS he tell her what the donkey and the ox were saying. The merchant refuses, objecting that he will die if he tells. But, she insists and he prepares to tell her and die. However, he overhears a rooster who says that he, the merchant, is foolish because he can't control one wife, while the rooster controls fifty wives. The rooster recommends that the merchant beat his wife until she stops trying to get him to tell her the animal language. This proves a successful ploy, and the merchant gains control of his wife and doesn't die, because he refuses to reveal the animal language.
BUT, Shahrazad refuses to accept the message of this tale, because it, like the Vizier's first tale, offers a weak analogy to her situation. She is no nagging wife to be beaten, nor is the Vizier in danger of death from her marrying the King; she is the one putting herself in danger. The Vizier's attempts to dissuade Shahrazad by telling stories have failed, and she insists on marrying the King.
Shahrazad then tells her little sister, Dinarzad, that she will send for her on her wedding night and Dinarzad should then ask Shahrazad to tell a story "'and it will cause the king to stop his practice, save myself, and deliver the people.'"
This is the great power of wonderful stories, when told well and for a good purpose. They will cure the King, save Shahrazad's life, and free the kingdom from the terror of having its young women killed night after night.
Shahrazad duly marries the King and summons her sister to her bedchamber, where Dinarzad asks her to tell a story. This starts the series of Shahrazad's stories, many of which include other stories within stories, like a set of interlocking puzzle boxes.
THE STORY OF THE FIRST NIGHT
The First Night is the story of the Merchant and the Demon. A traveling merchant stops to rest and eat. He tosses date pits onto the ground, washes, and says his prayers. Suddenly there appears an old demon, sword in hand, feet on the ground and head in the clouds, who says "I must kill you as you killed him," because one of the date pits the merchant tossed away struck the demon's son and killed him. This is the justice of the pre-Islamic law of "blood for blood," no matter what the intentions of the people involved.
The Merchant replies with Muslim piety: "To God we belong and to God we return. There is no power or strength save in God the Almighty, the Magnificent. If I killed him, I did it by mistake. Please forgive me." But the Demon is of the old school of pre-Islamic law, and replies, "By God, I must kill you, as you killed my son." This, of course, parallels the situation of the King who is killing a woman every night to punish a woman long dead--it is punishment without determining guilt. The pious merchant pleads, but the demon insists he MUST kill him.
Dawn comes, and Shahrazad stops the story right in the middle, but says she'll tell an even better story if the king lets her live until the next night. He agrees, wanting to hear the end of the story, after which he will kill her.
THE STORY OF THE SECOND NIGHT
The Demon agrees to let the merchant go home and put his affairs in order. The merchant swears to God that he will return on New Year's Day. The demon accepts this because they both believe in the same God, even though the merchant is Muslim and the demon is from an earlier time and accepts an earlier law.
True to his word, the merchant puts his affairs in order and returns on New Year's Day. As he waits for the demon to come and kill him, an old man appears with a deer on a leash, hears the merchant's story and says he will stay until he sees the outcome.
Dawn comes and Shahrazad stops telling her story. The intrigued King agrees to let her live yet another day to tell the rest of it.
THE STORY OF THE THIRD NIGHT
Another old man with two black dogs arrives, hears the merchant's story, and says he'll stay to see the outcome.
THE STORY OF THE FOURTH NIGHT
The demon appears and the first old man asks him if he will release one third of the merchant's guilt if the old man can tell the demon a strange and wonderful story. The demon agrees and the first old man tells his tale.
He had a barren wife for thirty years and then he took a mistress who bore a son. His wife was jealous and, while the man was away, turned his mistress into a cow and the son into a bull. When the man returned, he was told that his mistress had died and his son had run away.
On a feast day, at his wife's insistence, the old man sacrificed the cow, although the cow wept and otherwise behaved oddly. But, it proved only skin and bones, when dead, so at his wife's insistence, he was going to sacrifice the bull, but it threw itself at his feet and behaved pathetically.
THE STORY OF THE FIFTH NIGHT
The old man refused to kill the bull and sent him to live with a shepherd, whose daughter saw through the enchantment. She changed him back into a man after his father agreed to marry the bull/son to her. She also changed the evil wife into a pretty deer, the very deer the old man had with him on a leash.
The demon agrees that this is a strange and amazing tale, and grants one third of the merchant's life. The second old man, with the two dogs, then says that his story is even more strange and amazing and the demon agrees to grant one third of the merchant's life if the story proves to be so.
THE STORY OF THE SIXTH NIGHT
The second old man tells the story of himself and his two brothers who squandered away their wealth each time he helped them to get on their feet. Finally, they persuaded him to go on a trading voyage.
THE STORY OF THE SEVENTH NIGHT
They arrived at their destination, sold their goods at a nice profit, and the man telling the story met a girl dressed in tatters. She asked for a favor and he agreed. The favor was that he would marry her, and she added that she would reward him for his "kindness and charity." He felt pity for her and "guided by what God the Most High had intended for me, I consented." This displayed his virtues of trust in God and belief in Destiny or predestination, a frequent theme in the Nights.
On the voyage home, the two brothers became jealous and tossed him and his new wife overboard. The wife turned into a she-demon and carried him to safety on an island, saying, "Husband, I have rewarded you by saving you from drowning, for I am one of the demons who believe in God...." This is the second pious demon we have encountered in the Nights so far. She wanted to kill the evil brothers, but her husband refused, so she flew him to his home, where he found the two dogs waiting.
The Demon whose son was killed by the merchant's date pit agrees that the story is indeed strange and amazing and grants another third of the man's life to the second old man.
The third old man then asks if the demon will grant the last third of the merchant's life if his story is even more strange and amazing. The story loving demon agrees again to this bargain.
THE STORY OF THE EIGHTH NIGHT
The third old man tells the story of his "mule." When the old man had surprised his wife in bed with a slave, his wife turned him (the old man) into a dog. He ran to a butcher shop, where the butcher's daughter recognized that he was a man in dog form. She sprinkled him with magical water and restored him to human form. The old man then asked for a bit of the magical water, which he used to turn his wife into the mule who accompanies him.
The demon, amazed and "swaying with delight," grants the final third of the merchant's life. The demon leaves and the merchant thanks the three old men and then returns home.
Shahrazad remarks that this story was not as strange and amazing as the story of the Fisherman, and her sister says, on cue, "Please, what story?" And Shahrazad begins a new set of stories that will continue for several nights. The king is hooked on her stories by now, and we know they will go on and on.
JUSTICE AND FORGIVENESS
This first set of stories is all about justice and forgiveness. The demon is like the king in demanding blood for blood justice, whether or not there is personal guilt involved. Shahrazad is no more responsible for what the king's first wife did than the merchant is for innocently scattering date pits, one of which killed the demon's son. In both cases, a new, better kind of justice must be taught. This is what the stories in the first set do--they teach justice with forbearance. Evil people are turned into deer and dogs, not killed, and the innocent merchant is set free, thanks to the care and charity of the three old men, who may well be allegories of the three revealed religions of the book, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, which brought justice to the pagan world of blood guilt.
This world of the Nights is complex, instructive, pious at times and quite bawdy at others. Even this first small chunk of the Nights includes good and bad demons, plenty of sex, including a relationship between a demon and a human woman kept locked in a chest, instructions on how to restore a king to sanity, how to control a wife, how to keep a promise, how to tell stories to out-argue one's father, how a woman can be brave, and so on. Not all the stories are as uplifting as this sequence, but some are even more pious, and most teach about the manners and ethics of survival in a complex, difficult world ruled by capricious tyrants, but ultimately governed by a benevolent God.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The Thousand and One Nights. Translated by Husain Haddawy. In The Norton Anthology: World Masterpieces. Expanded edition. Volume 1. New York: Norton, 1995, 1514-1540.
Task 5. Read the selections from the Arabian Nights and Suras
TASK 5. Read the selections from the Arabian Nights and Suras (also known as Chapters) 1: The Opening, 4: The Women, and 5: The Dinner Table from the Quran. The link for the Arabian Nights is https://www.learner.org/series/invitation-to-world-literature/the-thousand-and-one-nights/ (Links to an external site.) and the Quran (known as Koran) http://quod.lib.umich.edu/k/koran/browse.html (Links to an external site.)
TASK 1. Read the Courtly Love Study Guide
TASK 1. Read the Courtly Love Study Guide located below, which will give you background information on Medieval ideas about love, courtly and otherwise.
WORLD LITERATURE I
Task 1, Unit 4: Courtly Love Study Guide
By Dr. Diane Thompson, NVCC, ELI
DEVELOPMENT OF COURTLY LOVE
Courtly Love as a concept, if not as a practice, developed out of a mixture of Arab Love Poetry and Troubadour Poetry. The Cult of the Virgin Mary got mixed in a bit later.
11th century
Arab Love Poetry; lady worship; joi (sexual)
12th century Troubadour Poetry; fin'amors--adultery (Bernart de Ventadorn); Conjugal Courtly Love (Marie de France)
13th century EVE & MARY: Marian Cult and Love Poetry; mixture of love and religion (Laura, Beatrice)
Although today the notion of whether or not there ever was a cult or practice of Courtly Love has come under much attack, one can find poetry that clearly used its concepts, especially in the 12th and 13th centuries.
There are three unique aspects of Courtly Love:
the ennobling force of human love
the elevation of the beloved above the lover
love as ever unsatisfied, ever increasing desire
(Following Denomy, The Heresy of Courtly Love (1947), 20-21)
This power of transformation, of ennobling the character of the lover, is the distinguishing characteristic of Courtly Love. Courtly love is something entirely new in Europe, and the major source of our modern ideas about romantic love.
Courtly love is not very popular currently, especially not in serious literature and film. Why? Maybe there's a relation between the woman's movement and the decline of courtly love? An interesting question to think about.
TROUBADOURS
Troubadours: They flourished between 1100 and 1350 and were attached to various courts in the south of France. The troubadours wrote almost entirely about sexual love and developed the concept and practice of courtly love
There was no tradition of passionate love literature in the European middle ages before the twelfth century, although there was such a tradition in Arabic-speaking Spain and Sicily. This Arab love poetry was readily accessible to Europeans living in Italy and Spain and was a major source of the Troubadour-developed cult of courtly love.
Troubadour love poetry, although conceptually adulterous, inspired the man (and perhaps the woman) and ennobled the lover's character.
THE MAIN FEATURES OF TROUBADOUR POETRY:
an attitude of subservience and fidelity to a cold and cruel mistress
an exorbitant and quasi-religious praise of the lady's beauty
the requirement that love be extramarital
"Though [this]...love was sensual, their ideal of "pure" love prohibited sexual intercourse between the lovers at least in theory." Of course, in fact, people probably did what they always have done.
(following: Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, 871)
EVE & MARY - WOMEN IN THE MIDDLE AGES
Feudal nobility arranged marriage to suit families' advantages, often while the children were still infants.
A married woman was the ward of her husband, had limited legal rights and was subject to the will of her husband, who had the power to punish her physically.
Pregnancy and childbirth were frequent and risky.
The middle ages produced a great deal of misogynic literature expressing the traditional church position:
women were inferior: from Adam's rib
women were sinful: story of the Fall
Not only were women inferior, but they had characters like that of the serpent, cursed by God like the Genesis serpent to a lowly life of servitude and pain
However,
There was Mary as well as Eve to provide images of medieval womanhood. Mary was not only praiseworthy for her holiness, but for her embodiment of ideal feminine traits. Mary's primary virtues centered on her freedom from sexuality. She was conceived by divine intervention and she conceived Jesus immaculately. The "good" feminine was thus divorced from sexuality, although not from motherhood.
During the 13th century, Mary increased in importance as the divine feminine mediator between human beings and God. She interceded for human beings seeking salvation, as Beatrice did for Dante.
The exaltation of the beatified Virgin Mary climaxed in the Marian cult or cult of the Virgin Mary, which influenced the literature, music and art of the high and late Middle Ages.
Consequently, at the same time that people were praying to the Virgin Mary for salvation, they were condemning Eve for the Fall of Man. This Eve/Mary dualism allowed and even encouraged conflicting attitudes toward medieval women.
On the one hand, women held a high position in the system of Christian redemption, yet on the other hand, they were responsible for the wretched, sinful, corrupt state of fallen humanity.
This dualistic religious attitude towards women offers us some insight into the curious mixture of love and religion, sex and purity we find in the courtly love poetry and stories of the Middle Ages.
(The above section is based on the Introduction to Three Medieval Views of Women, translated and edited by Fiero, Pfeffer, & Allain)
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF COURTLY LOVE
Neither the Greeks nor the Romans thought that passionate love between the sexes could improve or transform the lovers. Rather, they thought of passionate love as either a punishment inflicted on men by the Gods, akin to madness, or as mere sensual gratification, not to be taken very seriously.
While antiquity did not approve of passionate love between the sexes, Christianity absolutely deplored it.
Even passionate love between spouses was considered theologically sinful, if unavoidable, until the thirteenth century when the Church began to modify its attitudes on this issue.
So, when a medieval passionate lover obediently subjects himself to the will of his beloved lady, he grants her a status, which women did not enjoy either in Antiquity or in the Middle Ages.
COURTS OF LOVE
Eleanor of Aquitaine was queen of the Court at Poitiers, France, in the late 12th c. Here she and her daughter, Marie, Countess of Champagne, set up a court controlled by women, which aimed at "civilizing" the rather rough society of the area. Many gifted poets and scholars came to her court at Poitiers. A unique situation where wealthy powerful women were able to create their own environment.
The doctrine of Courtly Love was designed to teach courtiers how to be lovely, charming and delightful. Its basic premise was that being in love would teach you how to be loveable and pleasing; so love taught courtesy.
This kind of love is a social phenomenon, designed for communal living at a wealthy court where people had plentiful leisure and desired to entertain and be entertained delightfully.
This ideal of courtly love which developed in Poitiers helped to free women from the role of inferior, destructive Eve and take on some of the status and elevation of the beatified Mary. Here, a woman instead of being the property of man, which was the case in feudal Europe, is the mistress of a man who is her creature and property.
Marie and Eleanor had a court of perhaps 60 elegant noble ladies who would hold a Court of Love where they would dispute, jury and judge questions of love according to their code of courtly love.
Of course, all of these Court of Love judgments are based on a code and ideals that have little to do with the realities of woman's position in the feudal society. This was a social court, not a legal one.
(The above section is based on Kelly, Eleanor of Aquitaine.)
ANDREW THE CHAPLAIN -- THE CODE OF COURTLY LOVE
Marie had Andrew the Chaplain, a cleric at the Court of Poitiers; write a formal code of love, which would instruct people in the proper behavior of lovers as part of her attempts to civilize Poitiers.
Ovid's Ars Amatoria or Art of Loving was the source for Andrew's Art of Courtly Love. Ovid had written a cynical spoof on the fine art of seduction reduced to a set of rules. However, when Andrew, under Marie's direction, adapted Ovid to the 12th c. Court of Poitiers, a major shift occurred:
Ovid presents the man as the master who seduces women for his pleasure
Art of Courtly Love presents woman as mistress and the man is her vassal who serves her.
THE ART (AND RULES) OF COURTLY LOVE
(The following quotes and information are from Andreas Cappelanus: The Art of Courtly Love. Ed.Locke)
Love "Love is a certain inborn suffering derived from the sight of and excessive meditation upon the beauty of the opposite sex, which causes each one to wish above all things the embraces of the other."
Effect of love " O what a wonderful thing is love, which makes a man shine with so many virtues and teaches everyone, no matter who he is, so many good traits of character!"
Who may love "everyone of sound mind who is capable of doing the work of Venus may be wounded by one of love's arrows unless prevented by age, or blindness, or excess of passion."
Love and class if you love a peasant woman, praise her and force her--peasants don't respond to gentle wooing
How Love May be Retained
keep it secret
be wise and restrained in conduct
be generous and charitable
be humble, not proud
offer service to all ladies
do what is pleasing to your loved one
associate with good men; avoid the wicked
jealousy increases love
How Love Decreases
too much exposure to the beloved
too much privacy for love
uncouth behavior
sudden loss of property
blasphemy and anti-religious behavior
How Love Ends
if one of the lovers breaks faith
if one of the lovers strays from the Catholic religion
The First Five Rules of Love According to Andrew
1 Marriage is no real excuse for not loving
2 He who is not jealous cannot love
3 No one can be bound by a double love
4 It is well known that love is always increasing or decreasing
5 That which a lover takes against his will of his beloved has no relish
(There are a total of 31 "rules.")
Andrew's Rejection of Love (Book III of The Art of Courtly Love)
This doctrine of courtly adulterous love evidently did not sit well with Andrew in the end, so he wrote a third book refuting the first two. This may show the conflict he felt between the pagan naturalism of courtly love and his clerical training in Christian self-control. Or, as some suspect, the entire Art of Courtly Love may be a spoof on the ungodly, unchristian love religion. At any rate, Andrew sums up his attitude toward Courtly Love in Book III thus:
"The mutual love which you seek in women you cannot find, for no woman ever loved a man or could bind herself to a lover in the mutual bonds of love."
This concept of women as deceitful and faithless is rather typical of medieval monkish misogyny.
ANDREW'S RULES OF LOVE APPLIED TO A POEM BY BERNART DE VENTADORN
Bernart de Ventadorn at court of Eleanor of Aquitaine, was an outstanding courtly love troubadour. Here is the second stanza of "When I See the Lark That Moves."
Alas! how much I knew of love,
I thought, but so little know of it!
For now I cannot check my love
For her, who'll give me little profit.
She has my heart and all of me,
Herself and all the world; and nothing
Leaves to me, when thus she takes me,
Except desire and heartfelt longing.
(In Medieval Age. Ed. and Intro. by Angel Flores. Laurel Masterpieces of World Literature. N.Y.: Dell, 1963. Trans. by Muriel Kittel, p. 178.)
How the Rules of Courtly Love Apply to "When I See the Lark That Moves"
lover cannot control his loving "I cannot check my love"
lady is in control of lover "she has my heart and all of me"
lady is cold, cruel and ungenerous "and nothing/ Leaves to me"
he suffers endless desire without consummation "except desire and heartfelt longing"
ANDREW'S RULES OF LOVE APPLIED TO MARIE DE FRANCE'S ELIDUC Note: If you want to read Eliduc, link here:
HYPERLINK "http://www.yorku.ca/inpar/eliduc_rickert.pdf" http://www.yorku.ca/inpar/eliduc_rickert.pdf
A happily married knight, Eliduc, is slandered to his king; Eliduc leaves for England until court politics simmer down; he volunteers to help a besieged king and is successful. The king's daughter, Guilliadun, invites him to her quarters to talk;
"She kept stealing looks at him...his face, his body, his every expression...and said to herself how attractive he was, how close to her ideal man. Love fires his arrow, she falls headlong in love." (Norton Anthology: World Masterpieces, expanded edition, V.1: 1683)
Rule 9: No one can love unless he [or she] is impelled by the persuasion of love
Eliduc also falls in love with her, although he had promised his wife not to look at another woman.
Rule 1: Marriage is no real excuse for not loving
Rule 17: A new love puts to flight an old one
The first king regrets Eliduc's departure and asks him to come back and help him. Eliduc agrees, but promises Guilliadun that he will return on the day she names. She names it and says he must then take her away with him. (He's never mentioned to her that he is married.)
Rule 26: Love can deny nothing to love
He returns on the appointed day and they steal away to sea. A storm at sea and a sailor says, "'My lord, it's the girl you've brought aboard who's going to drown us all. We'll ever reach land. You have a proper wife at home.'" Guilliadun hears this and faints. She stays in a coma as if dead.
Eliduc brings her body to shore and places her in a chapel near his land where he intends to bury her. Then he goes home to his wife who notices that he's very unhappy.
Rule 3: No one can be bound by a double love
The wife has a servant spy on Eliduc and finds out about the chapel. She goes there and realizes the truth about her husband's sadness.
Rule 31: Nothing forbids one woman being loved by two men or one man by two women
While the wife is watching the seemingly dead Guilliadun, a weasel darts out from beneath the altar and the servant kills it with a stick. Then its weasel mate discovers it, runs outside and picks a red flower which it puts into the dead weasel's mouth, reviving it. So Eliduc's wife takes the flower and puts it into Guilliadun's mouth and she revives.
Eliduc's wife consoles and sympathizes with Guilliadun and brings her home to see Eliduc. They are overjoyed to be reunited; the wife takes vows to become a nun, and Eliduc marries Guilliadun.
Rule 8: No one should be deprived of love without the very best of reasons
Rule 14: The easy attainment of love makes it of little value; difficulty of attainment makes it prized
After many happy years, Guilliadun and Eliduc also take vows and Guilliadun goes to live in the convent with Eliduc's first wife, while he also takes vows and lives as a religious for the rest of his life.
Consider Book Three of the Art of Courtly Love, which rejects physical love for spiritual love and Christian behavior.
Love and Romance in Eliduc
Courtly love motifs:
love for a married person
seemingly unattainable
love strikes like an arrow through the eye
exquisite behavior by all lovers
total self- sacrifice of wife
Romance motifs:
adventures
travels
battles
miracle of weasel-flower (re: moly in Odyssey)
ANDREW'S RULES OF LOVE APPLIED TO BOCCACCIO'S DECAMERON
The Ninth Tale of the Fifth Day:
Frederigo, a young gentleman, falls in love with Monna Giovanna, a beautiful, charming, married Florentine lady.
Rule 1: Marriage is no real excuse for not loving
Frederigo spent all his money on tournaments, jousting, hosting feasts and other extravagances, to win Monna Giovanna's love."
Rule 10: Love is always a stranger in the home of avarice
Rule 14: The easy attainment of love makes it of little value; difficulty of attainment makes it prized
She did not care for him or his spendthrift ways. He lost his wealth, retaining only one little farm and one falcon, "among the best in the world."
Monna's husband died and she and her son went to live for a year in the country near Frederigo's farm. The son became friendly with Frederigo and loved his falcon.
The son fell very ill and asked his mother to get Frederigo's falcon for him, which he thought would surely make him get well. She hated to ask Frederigo for his last dear possession, but fear for her son's health led her to do it.
She visits Frederigo's farm and tells him "'I have come to compensate you for the harm you have suffered on my account by loving me more than you needed to; and the compensation is this: I, along with this companion of mine, intend to dine with you--a simple meal--this very day.'" (Norton Anthology: World Masterpieces, expanded edition, V.1: 1890)
He is super-courteous, and invites her to wait in the garden while he sets the table. There is no food in his house, so he kills the falcon to make a meal.
Rule 24: Every act of a lover ends in the thought of his beloved
Rule 25: A true lover considers nothing good except what he thinks will please his beloved
Rule 26: Love can deny nothing to love
They eat and then she explains about her sick son and requests the falcon. Frederigo weeps and gives a super-courteous speech and shows her the falcon's beak and feathers and feet. She praised his gracious spirit but reproached his killing the falcon for her meal. She went home; her son died a few days later.
Eventually, her brothers wanted her to remarry, since she was young and rich; she said she would only marry Frederigo, which she did, and he was more prudent after that.
Frederigo and Monna Giovanna as Courtly Lovers
the epitome of courtly lovers
love from a distance
love for an unattainable married lady
the lover gives up his all for love
the lover receives the final reward of the lady for such great courtesy
UNCOURTLY LOVE IN BOCCACCIO'S DECAMERON
The Second Tale of the Fourth Day
A wicked priest, Brother Alberto has been such a successful hypocrite that he became trusted and influential.
A foolish woman, Madonna Lisetta da Ca'Quirino, whose husband is out of town, goes to him for confession.
Brother Alberto wants to have sex with her and develops a scam to achieve his goal. He tells her that a divinely handsome man (the Angel Gabriel) beat him, because he was harsh on her during confession, and if she does not pardon him, he will be beaten again.
She pardons him and he tells her that the Angel Gabriel would like to spend the night with her. She likes the idea and Brother Alberto tells her that the Angel Gabriel will use his (Alberto's) body for the encounter.
She agrees and he shows up disguised as an angel and spends the night with her. Alberto is supposedly in heaven while Gabriel uses his body.
But Lisetta foolishly boasts to a neighbor and soon everyone knows about her angel. Her in-laws decide to get involved and try to catch him in the act; leaving his wings behind, he dives in the canal, and a neighbor gives him refuge.
His "rescuer" discovers who the man he rescued really is, and tricks Brother Alberto into dressing in honey and feathers as a wild man. The "rescuer" chains Brother Alberto in the town square and tells everyone who he is. Alberto is led away by the friars and locked up until he dies.
Uncourtly elements in Boccaccio's Tale of Brother Alberto
Love as deceit and lust; nothing courtly here
Parody of some courtly love elements.
Instead of earthly love leading to divine love as in Dante and Petrarch, here fraudulent divine love (Alberto wears wings while having sex) leads to sex.
This love is sexual, not longing for an unattainable lady.
The lady is tricked, not adored.
No secrecy; the lover is found out, ridiculed and punished.
Instead of pining for his lady he is locked up by the friars.
The Middle Ages, like today, had every variety of love, from the sacred to the profane.
TASK 2. Read "Lanval" and "Laustic," by Marie de France; selections from the Decameron, and "The Story of Ying Ying."
TASK 2. Read "Lanval" and "Laustic," by Marie de France; selections from the Decameron, and "The Story of Ying Ying."
Use the links to download the etexts of "Lanval" and "Eliduc" by Marie de France, The Decameron, Day 1, and "The Story of Ying Ying." If you are using the etexts, pay extra close attention to the Courtly Love Study Guide. Note that some of the readings are different), but don't worry. Either way you will have plenty to read and write about.
Eliduc: (Links to an external site.) eliduc_mason.pdf Download eliduc_mason.pdf
Lanval: lanval-1.pdf Download lanval-1.pdf
Laustic: Marie de France: “Laüstic” (c.1180) - translated by Jack Ross - ka mate ka ora - nzepc.pdf Download Marie de France: “Laüstic” (c.1180) - translated by Jack Ross - ka mate ka ora - nzepc.pdf
The Story of Ying Ying: Cui_Yingying.pdf Download Cui_Yingying.pdf
The Decameron, Day One: The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio (English).pdf Download The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio (English).pdf
