Transferral, Transformation, and the Act of Reading in Marie de France's Bisclavret

References

• Rychner , Jean . 1966 . Les Lais de Marie de France Paris : Champion. .
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• Bailey , H. W. 1981 . “Bisclavret in Marie de France,” . Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies , 1 : 95 – 97 . Most recently, and “Bisclavret in Marie de France: A Reply,” Cambridge Medievel Celtic Studies 4 (1982): 77–82, debate the etymology of words for werewolf. In contrast, Manfred Bambeck, “Das Werwolfmotiv im ‘Bisclavret,’” Zeitschrift für Romanische Philologie 89 (1973): 123–47; Salvatore Battaglia, “II mito del licantropo nel ‘Bisclavret’ di Maria di Francia,” in Filologia Romanza 3 (1956): 229–53, reprinted in La coscienza letteraria del medioevo (Naples: Liguori, 1965), pp. 308–59; M. Faure, “Le Bisclavret de Marie de France: une histoire suspecte de loup-garou,” Revue des Langues Romanes 83 (1978): 345–56; and Sebastian Neumeister, “Das Märchenhafte in Bisclavret und Lanval, Sympton einer geschlossenen Welt,” Mélanges de Philologie Romane offerts à Charles Camproux (Montpellier: Université Paul Valéry, 1978) 1, 429–38, all discuss the marvelous to explore deeper meanings. Finally, François Suard, “‘Bisclavret’ et les contes du loup-garou: essai d'interprétation,” Marche Romane 30 (1980): 267–76, examines the literature on lycanthropy to suggest that Marie uses the werewolf as a projection of the Lady's psychological self
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• Frappier , Jean . 1961 . “Remarques sur la structure de lai, essai de définition et de classement,”. ” . In La Littérature narrative d'imagination, des genres littéraires d'expression 23 – 29 . Paris : Presses Universitaires de France. . For symbolic and aesthetic interpretations of the worlds in Marie's poetry, see for example, Colloque de Strasbourg, 23–25 avril, 1959, and Robert B. Green, “The Fusion of Magic and Realism in Two Lays of Marie de France,” Neophilologus, 59 (1975): 324–336
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• Freeman , Michelle A. 1985 . “Dual Natures and Subverted Glosses: Marie de France's ‘Bisclavret,’” . Romance Notes , 25 : 288 – 301 . examines how the Lady plays against the narrator, offering a negative type of the poet-persona. At the same time, Freeman posits the Knight as the silent text, whose true meaning is continually glossed, but revealed only at the ending of the lai. Edith Joyce Benkow, “The Naked Beast: Clothing and Humanity in Bisclavret,” Chimères 19 (1988): 27–43, examines the werewolf material to argue that the Lady need not be seen as solely evil, that some aspects of her emerge in the narrator as well. My study differs from these in that they both accept the positioning of the text's role in the Knight, while the Lady acts as some persona of the poet. I suggest that metaliterary roles in the lai are much less defined
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• Noakes , Susan . 1988 . Timely Reading: Between Exegesis and Interpretation Cornell University Press. . explores the reading process as it is portrayed by writers, a process that moves between models centered in the editor (exegesis) and in the reader (interpretation)
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• The King's command that the dogs be chased away may function as a reminder of the Prologue to Guigemar, which describes those awful dogs who attack good poets: “Pur ceo comencent le mestier / Del malveis chien coart, felun, / Ki mort la gent par traïsun” (II. 12–14). The lines in the lai describing the werewolf as one with “entente e sen,” remind further of the General Prologue. That is, the werewolf's true knowledge (“escïence”) is hidden by his present form, which is without a voice, an eloquent communicative outlet (“bone eloquence”).
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• Brät , Herman . 1978 . “Marie de France et l'obscurité des anciens,” . Neuphilologische Mitteilungen , 79 : 180 – 84 . Much work has been done on the poetics of Marie's Lais, with special reference to the General Prologue, Mortimer J. Donovan, “Priscian and the Obscurity of the Ancients,” Speculum 35 (1961): 75–80; Alfred Foulet and Karl D. Uitti, “The Prologue to the Lais of Marie de France,” Romance Philology 35 (1981): 242–49; Tony Hunt, “Glossing Marie de France,” Romanische Forschungen 86 (1974): 396–418; Emanuel J. Mickel, Jr., “The Unity and Significance of Marie's ‘Prologue’,” Romania 96 (1975): 83–91; Rupert T. Pickens, “La Poétique de Marie de France d'après les prologues des Lais,” Les Lettres Romanes 32 (1978): 367–84; D. W. Robertson, Jr., “Marie de France, Lais, Prologue, 13–15,” Modern Language Notes 64 (1949): 336–38; Leo Spitzer, “The Prologue to the Lais of Marie de France and Medieval Poetics,” Modern Philology 41 (1943–44): 96–102. For an examination regarding the reader's roles in Marie's self-reflexive texts, see Robert Sturges, “Texts and Readers in Marie de France's Lais,” Romanic Review 71 (1980): 244–64. Sturges does not examine Bisclavret in detail (p. 264); nevertheless, his study of the theme of interpretation in the Lais, with its reader-oriented emphasis, complements this study
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• 1985 . “ A useful collection of studies on the metaphor is Wolf Paprotté and René Dirven. ” . In The Ubiquity of Metaphor: Metaphor in Language and Thought Amsterdam / Philadelphia : John Benjamin. . (Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic Science, 29), Also see footnote 12 on the metaphor in the Middle Ages
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• The werewolf's appearance is often contrasted with his interior. At the beginning, he has a spotless reputation (II. 15–18), but he is, “in fact,” a werewolf who kills (II. 63–66). In the King's court, the werewolf is outwardly a beast, but inwardly a model of polite behavior (II. 179–84). The contrast between appearance and interior is supported throughout the lai by the motifs of clothing and other surface-depth reminders (e.g. II. 68–96, 115, 191–93, 227–30, 271–99, 302–04, 309–14).
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• Freeman briefly discusses the Lady's sterile translatio (p. 294), sterile because the Knight's tale travelled no further than her lover. But, if the Lady's retold tale at the end is counted, as well as her noseless daughters, then her translatio may be described as imperfect rather than sterile.
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• Thus, Augustine advocates in the fourth book of De Doctrina Christiana that Christian orators live their lives faithfully, and hence serve as a text, a sign of God's creation.
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• Transformations may readily be associated with the metaphor, which in the Middle Ages has a more structurally oriented and hence more widely applicable definition than commonly used today. Geoffrey of Vinsauf defines the metaphor as follows, “Instruit iste modus transsumere verba decenter. / Si sit homo de quo fit sermo, transferor ad rem / Expressae similem; quae sit sua propria vestis / In simili casu cum videro, mutuor illam / Et mihi de veste veteri transformo novellam” [my italics]. [“This figure teaches how to transform words appropriately. If a person were to transfer similar qualities from one word to another, it is like an appropriate garment, similar, as I see it, to changing my old clothing to new” (my translation)]. Ernest Gallo, ed. and trans., The Poetria Nova and Its Sources in Early Rhetorical Doctrine (The Hague: Mouton, 1971), II. 770–74. The Rhetorica and Herennium defines the metaphor as follows: “Translatio est cum verbum in quandam rem transferetur ex alia re, quod propter similitudinem recte videbitur posse transferri” [my italics]. [“Metaphor occurs when a word applying to one thing is transferred to another, because the similarity seems to justify this transference.”] Harry Caplan, ed. and trans., Rhetorica ad Herennium (Harvard University Press, 1977), IV. xxxiv. 45. Finally, see Michelle A. Freeman, The Poetics of Translatio Studii and Conjointure (Lexington: French Forum, 1979), pp. 81–83, 170. Freeman examines the creation of a metaphor in the Blood Drops Scene from Chrétien de Troyes's Perceval, discussing metaphor as process.
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• Kelly , Douglas . 1978 . Medieval Imagination: Rhetoric and the Poetry of Courtly Love University of Wisconsin Press. . I use “inventor” here to capture the sense of inventio (finding), the term used in rhetorical handbooks to stress that creative ability lies, in part, in the selection of appropriate material, as argued by
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• The King and the Lady are associated with one another through the Knight, whom they both love. The King, however, offers him a relationship, not dependent upon appearances, as the narrator emphasizes: “U ke li reis deüst errer, / II n'out cure de desevrer; / Ensemble od lui tuz jurs alout / Bien s'aparceit que il l'amout” (II. 181–84); “Li reis le curut enbracier; / Plus de cent feiz l'acole e baise” (II. 300–01, my italics). These last lines recall the husband's first described interaction with his wife and thereby deepen the contrast between the two relations, “Quant il l'oï, si l'acola / Vers lui la traist, si la beisa” (II. 37–38, my italics).
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• 1923 . This phase of the Lady's fear may also be highly metaliterary, since it invokes the old advice to the poet to internalize a work before writing. For example, Geoffrey of Vinsauf gives such advice in his Poetria Nova, II. 50–61, e.g., “Mentis in arcano cum digesserit ordo, / Materiam verbis veniat vestire poesis” (II. 60–61). Edition used found in Edmond Faral, Les Arts poétiques du Xiie et du Xiiie siècle (Paris: Librairie Ancienne Edouard Champion
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• Not only in the genealogical pun, but also in her being less amicably persuaded to tell her own tale of beast-like behavior, thus inverting roles.
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• Faure , M. 1978 . “Le Bisclavret de Marie de France,” . Revue des Langues Romanes , 83 : 350 For studies on the relation between the Lady and Delilah and / or Eve, Ernest Hoepffner, Les Lais de Marie de France (Paris: Boivin, 1935), p. 146; Judith Rice Rothschild, Narrative Technique in the LAIS of Marie de France (University of North Carolina Press, 1974), I, 137
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• Corti , María . 1978 . An Introduction to Literary Semiotics Edited by: Bogat , Margherita and Mandelbaum , Allen . Indiana University Press. . Corti argues that the ability to read a text against a greater literary context can occur because of the viability of literature as a communication system that relies on conventions. Variations on conventions, then, enable multiple messages to be conveyed
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• Kelly , Douglas . 1978 . “Translatio studii: Translation, Adaptation, and Allegory in Medieval French Literature,” . Philological Quarterly , 57 : 305 – 06 .
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• Ringger , Kurt . 1973 . Die Lais 35 94 – 95 . Tübingen : Max Niemeyer Verlag. .
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