Lecture 2 - In Search of an Identity

Character ambivalence: straddling social codes, genres; Tristan as ambivalent hero: knight, huntsman, insider/outsider; Illustrative episodes

What is interesting about character in Béroul’s text? (4 things)

The protagonists are transitional figures. Béroul uses character to provoke thinking amongst audience and he thinks about the composition of characters. Astride moral and cultural codes (which are part of identity), and spans across literary genres.

Is this disruptive, exploratory?

Does he want to point to the instability of identity politics? i.e. a critique of feudal organisation?

Thematization of judgment: always being asked to make an assessment, particularly of the lovers. Moral viewpoints: God vs man. Incommensurability of certain vantage points (I.e. that have the most amount of knowledge - God)

Tristan characterisation: 

• Mais prié vos que cest arc tendez, / Et verron com il est bendez". '/ Tristran s’esteut, si s’apensa, / Oiez ! en son penser tensa. / Prent s’entente, si tendi l’arc. (“Please, my lord, bend this bow and we’ll see how it’s strung”. Tristan stops still, then thinks. Listen! He debates in his mind, comes to his conclusion, and bends the bow.

Moments of generic instability (linking to Tristan’s characterisation)

There are ‘melodramatic moments,’ where the dramatic tension is raised and defused. (this can seem disproportionate)

• e.g. the discovery in the hideaway

• e.g. fragment’s final scene

We question whether this farcical sense is comedy, dramatic tension, bathos? (bathos = an abrupt and often comical shift from a serious, heightened tone)

There are also scenes which blend serious drama and comic effect e.g. the flour on the floor episode is suspenseful (ekphrasis), but ridiculous (risk-taking, snoring)

• Tristran faisoit / Senblant conme se il dormoit, / Quar il ronfloit forment du nes (vv.759-61)

Is this all utterly incongruous? Or is it that we are not provided with a frame congruous with what is going on? Are we seeing deviation from the norm in Tristan’s representation or is this the norm for him? 

He is not reliably any character archetype - warrior, hero… nothing to corroborate fully these character profiles with what he is reputed to have.

Tristan: ambiguous heroism (traditional characterisation, celtic influences)

Tristan’s legendary heritage: chivalric romance vs Celtic folklore

Beroul’s presentation of professional and social identities: warrior, huntsman, insider/outsider status. 

Trystan - Welsh

Anagram of Tantris (Welsh) denoting his fate - tant triste. Determining way on the shape of his identity.

Genealogy: illegitimate son of king of Léonois (kingdom neighbouring Cornwall) by Marc’s sister. 

Family position: benighted (in a state of pitiful or contemptible intellectual or moral ignorance) question of inheritance. Is Tristan in line to inherit from Mark? (the baron’s worry) 

• Or voi je bien, si con je quit, / Qu’il ne voudraient que o lui / Eüst home de son linage. / Molt m’a pené son mariage ! (vv. 123-26)

Professional and social status

Marc has threats from his barons that they will leave him, but Tristan is a landless knight. He could be hired by Marc or anyone else. He is a worthy warrior = sword for hire (soudoier) Ideas of mobility.

Status at Cornish court is primarily a result of military accomplishments. Or deüse estre a cort a roi, / Et cent danzeaus avoques moi, / Qui servisent por armes prendre / Et a moi lor servise rendre. / Aller deüse en autre terre / Soudoier et soudees querre (I should now be at a royal court with a hundred young knights around le in training to take up arms and acting in my service. I should leave and go to another kingdom to serve as a mercenary and look for a position)

He is the hero of Cornwall. (the Cornish worship him as he is protecting their lands)

• Je ne quit mais q’en nostre tens, / En la terre de Cornualle, / Ait chevalier qui Tristran valle (vv. 1470-72)

But nuanced by his personal connection with Marc. Prior to the potion Tristan has the ideal status for a landless knight. But it is not just a causal thing which means that the potion ‘ruins’ everything for him.

Ambiguous knight in action (2 parts + Gouvernal)

1. Fight with lepers over Iseult - burlesque battle: ‘to crutches!’ - Tristan’s courtesy: preuz et cortois. There is no danger of him being involved, Gouvernal enacts the violence upon Yvain. (he only participates in the violence in other versions) 

• Ivain s’aquet a desfubler, / En haut s’escrie : “Or as puioz ! / Or i parra qui ert des noz.” […] Li conteor dïent qu’Yvain / Firent nier qui sont vilain ; / N’en sevent mie bien l’estoire, / Berox l’a mex en sen memoire, / Trop ert Tristran preuz et cortois / A ocirre gent de tes lois (vv. 1250-52, 1265-70) (Yvain prepares to remove his cape and cries out in a loud voice: “To your crutches! We shall soon see who’s one of us” […] Storytellers claim that the two of them drowned Yvain, but they’re slanderers; they don’t know the story well at all, but Beroul has it in his memory: Tristan was too valiant and courteous to kill people of this kind)

• Gouvernal: Gouvernal saut de sen agait ; / Du mal que cil ot fait li menbre, / A s’espee tot le desmenbre, / Li chef en prent, atot s’en vet. (vv. 1708-11)

2. Execution of Denouil and Godoine

Tristan scalps Denouil and shoots at Godoine

Legitimate rough justice or chivalric violation? (i.e. the barons ‘felons’ deserve a grotesque death because of their malice throughout the story

Details of dress and equipment? Using clothing as an indicator of shifting identities?

• Tristran li preuz fu desfublez. / Denoalen est tost alez ; / Ainz n’en sout mot, quant Tristran saut. / Fuïr s’en veut mais il i faut ; / Tristran li fu devant trop pres. / Morir le fist. Q’en pout il mes ? / Sa mort queroit : cil s’en garda, / Que le chief du bu li sevra. / Ne li lut dire : “Tu me bleces” (vv. 4381-89à

Tristan’s liminal position (traverses different thresholds of his identity)

Outsider:

• Socially = illegitimate offspring

• Professionally = wandering mercenary

• Narratively = acting on margins of courtliness.

Insider: 

• Socially = Marc’s nephew

• Professionally = champion of Cornwall

• Narratively = not irreconcilable with courtliness

Illustrating ambivalence (as a knight, as huntsman, as outsider)

As a knight: he adapts espee to chop wood - re-working of chivalric skill in different domain.

• Sa loge fait : au brant qu’il tient / Les rains trenche, fait la fullie (vv. 1290-91) (He constructs his hideout: with the sword he wields he cuts branches and builds a leaf-shelter) - brant refers to the blade BUT there is a pattern of brant being used as the sword in the forest, but espee at court where he takes on his courtly identity again - movement through different worlds, acculturation to practicalities of life in the forest)

As huntsman: Husdent’s (Tristan’s dog) symbolic role - represents acculturation to new climate; displacement of self. Cf. Gouvernal.

• Il ert isneaus et toz tens prez, Quar il ert beaus, isneaus, non lenz, / Et si avoit a non Husdanz. (He was agile and always ready, for he was fine, swift, not slow, and was called Husdent)

As outsider: disguises at Blanche Lande - leper: social marginalisation:- strange knight, uncanny resemblance. Not recognised as Tristan and Iseult but figures who are not as themselves… Tristan in all of his knight attire is Tristan at one side of himself. He appears most strange here as he should be fully himself but is consttued as something else. SHIFTING IDENTITIES

• - Ges connois bien, Girflet respont. / Noir cheval a et noire enseigne : / Ce cest li Noirs de la Montaigne. / L’autre connois as armes vaires, / Qar en cest païs n’en a gaires. / Il sont faé, gel sai sanz dote (“I know them well,” answers Girflet. “The one with the black horse and black ensign, that’s Noir de la Montagne [the black prince of the mountain?]. I know the other by his variegated armour, for no-one else wears such armour in this kingdom. They are fairy spirits, I’m certain of it.) 

Tristan’s plurality

• Shifts between zones of cultural definition, becomes a charismatic cultural figure.

• Shifts between generic/narrative codes

• Shifts between rational and inexplicable.