John Keats, La Belle Dame Sans Essay

The old woman ,again , exercises her power over the knight and gives him a choice: either he can have an old and loyal wife or he can have a beautiful spouse who can feel the temptation to look for love in other men.

The knight endangers his manhood accepting Lady Bertilak’s purpose. So, we can say that manhood includes Christian, chivalric and loyal codes that are the cornerstone of a moral value. Moreover, it is normal that men make the first moves but in this case, Lord Bertilak’s wife makes it. As June states “The Lady is the one “making the first move”, so to speak, but it is ultimately Gawain who decides what is to become of those actions” (24). She does it because of her self-confidence and feels herself a superior being to him which was not normal at all in women at that time.

During a high point in medieval chivalric romance, both Marie de France’s Lanval and the anonymous Sir Gawain and the Green Knight tell fanciful tales of knighthood, chivalry, and spiritual and temporal (courtly) love. Both Lanval and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight portray their female characters as possessing considerable power and influence, within the events in the story and in the structure of the plot. Indeed, the female characters in both works function as the catalysts of the events within the stories, and also as instruments for each author's conveyed meaning. While Lanval presents its female characters in an unorthodox reversal of gender roles, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight employs the female characters as moral and spiritual trials for the hero, Sir Gawain. I will examine how the fairy princess and Queen Gwenevere in Marie de France's Lanval present a reversal of gender roles as was traditionally understood; she presents femininity as powerful, inspiring, and morally dynamic (for a woman can be ideal, or she can be corrupt). I will compare this to the representation of Lady Bertilak and Morgan le Fay in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, in which they are used to convey a “Biblical” warning for an ecclesiastical audience; particularly that of moral failure and the temptation of the flesh.

breasts; he set garlands of flowers upon their heads. Then he hung the gold necklaces

Imagine waking up one day and transforming into a werewolf, experiencing a change like no other, where you couldn't tell other individuals for fear of death. Bisclavaret was forced to deal with this emotional and physical change by himself. To keep himself and his wife safe, he was forced to leave their house three days out of every week. Some disagree saying that his wife is the one who was betrayed by her own husband because he withheld this important information from her. However, once questioned by his wife about his disappearances, he connected with his emotions by using his ethics and trusting her enough to tell her his secret.

Not only does this outburst cause Lanval to lose his lover, but now, he must also prove to King Arthur that he did not insult his honor by demeaning the Queen during his fit of rage. If Lanval had not acted this way, he still could have been a successful knight, yet the

She wraps her female sexual fantasy of Guenever's humiliation around a woman's perception of a male masturbatory fantasy. A handsome, dejected knight withdraws to a forest meadow next to a stream to reflect on his ill fortune. When he wakes from a nap, two lovely maidens take him to a fabulous pavilion where he spends the afternoon making love to the most beautiful woman on earth who loves him "more than anything" (116). Moreover, his generous lover provides him with "a dowry" of inexhaustible means and the opportunity to have her whenever he wishes, knowing he will circumscribe his pleasures to discrete circumstances. Marie's lai reflects twelfth-century feminine tastes.

of flowers, and he wears a very short gown. He likes to sit around and

Marie de France lived in a time when social graces were paramount to a good reputation, lordships and to securing good marriages. A woman was considered less valuable if she lost her virginity; a wife was subjected to her feudal lord, father, brother or son after her husband’s death. According to Angela Sandison’s article “The Role of Women in the Middle Ages”, this was because in the Middle Ages the Church and the aristocracy controlled public opinion and the legal system. These authorities of the times believed a woman’s place was in a submissive role to a man. In The Lay of the Nightingale, we will see how this social and religious hierarchy will impact the behaviors of the three people involved.

woman to avoid death. The knight and the old woman do not get along well, and

At the end of Medieval literature a new literature was created. Women wanted stories where they could have a role. The women wanted to be treated like queens. This idea of courtly love-where a knight honored a married woman like he would “his liege lord” (Schwartz 1) can be found in Gardner’s translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Sir Gawain must honor such a lady. Because Sir Gawain honors a married woman, he struggles with being an honest and loyal knight.

At his first encounter with a maiden, he greets her and seeks to please her, albeit clumsily. When the maiden at King Arthur’s court is struck by Kay, Perceval pledges that “she will be well avenged” before he dies (Lawall 1340). When the maiden Belrepeire comes to him at night, pleading for protection, Perceval comforts her and promises to “restore peace to all [her] land” (Lawall 1348). Perceval sees the maiden’s request as “an opportunity for [him] to win fame” (Lawall 1347). His love for inspires her to do bold, daring deeds. He therefore boldly defends the castle against the besiegers, winning the love and heart of the maiden. Perceval is kind to every maiden he meets. When he encounters a maiden weeping over a dead knight, he inquires after the matter. When he meets the maiden whose lover has forced her into penance, he seeks to comfort her.

becoming any worse in the future since “a thing of beauty is a joy for

to beg and made offers to her that at last she granted him her love and swore

her eyes ... kindling a kind of active uncaring"(p. 114) toward him. Her physical beauty, "the rhythmic rise-fall of her buttocks, the tremulous up-downing of her behind"(p.151), will make him "hurt for her, for the taming of her" (p. 152), for years to come.