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Neophilologus (2012) 96:1731
DOI 10.1007/s11061-011-9257-1
Ewa Slojka
Published online: 3 May 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011
Abstract This study proposes that Marie de Frances Chevrefoil characterizes Tristan and Isolde as living unnatural lives. The poems central symbol of a honeysuckle and a hazel unable to survive being separated is suggested to highlight the lovers acting contrary to nature. Drawing on the medieval tradition of appealing to nature as a norm for human behavior, the study explores the ethical implications of the comparison of the lovers to these plants. Maries version of the legend shows Tristan and Isolde to act against the fundamental inclinations of human life in pursuing their relationship. Their unnatural desire is indicated to be the cause of their lost self-determination, failure to nd happiness, and untimely death.
Keywords Marie de France Chevrefoil Tristan legend Ethics Nature
In Chevrefoil, Marie de France reexamines a central argument of the Tristan legend: the lovers loss of self-determination.1 Traditionally, Tristan and Isolde are represented as compelled by magic to remain in their adulterous relationship. While Chevrefoil preserves the key theme of the lovers inability to act freely, manifest in their belief that they cannot separate because their existence depends on each others presence, it never recalls the magic potion that unites them for life in many versions of the legend. Although this absence could be attributed merely to the poems episodic form,2 their relationship is further dissociated from the supernatural
1 Maries debt to the Tristan tradition has been a focus of critical discussion. See especially Williman; Adams and Hemming.
2 On this feature of the poem as possibly common to the broader Tristan tradition, see Gravdal.
E. Slojka (&)
Department of English, Providence College, Providence, RI 02918, USA e-mail: [email protected]
Nature and the Unnatural in Marie de Frances Chevrefoil
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by being provided with a common analogue in the natural world: the coexistence of hazel tree and honeysuckle. As we will see, magic is eliminated even more explicitly when the lovers emotions are shown to resemble those of other humans. Such a representation of their mutual dependence and lost self-direction without recourse to magic carries implications for the poems treatment of their situation.
This study proposes that Chevrefoil no longer describes...