Marie de France: Lanval
After reading Lanval by Marie de France, I have a few questions revolving around the level of power women had at this time. So far, in class we have discussed how women were borderline unappreciated because they were supposedly only good for raising children and keeping up with household chores. In this reading, we see a different perspective.
Towards the beginning of the reading, the text states, “No King under heaven, with all his wealth, Could ever buy any of this for himself.” At this point, the Queen was being described. It was shocking to me that she was described as so much wealthier than any King, which is not what I expected considering women barely had jobs and if they did, they were paid much less than men. This quotation and explanation makes me think that maybe women had more power than we think they did, unless this was just during medieval times.
In addition, later in the text, it stated, “The others, after they observe her, Crowd up to honor her and serve her. Once they've all tired out their eyes, And praised her beauty to the skies.” I found this quote towards the end of the text where they were in court. All of the men in the court were amazed by her and seemed to see her as someone who was more powerful than anyone else. This is an interesting theme in this text, and furthermore in this class, because we have discussed the lack of appreciation for women in history and their abilities. It seems that women were highly valued and respected, which is not what I thought.
Marie de France. Lanval.
Your theory of just how much power women had during this time period is fantastic! I also thought the same thing when reading Lanval. Typically we hear of women during this era being discriminated against and not having the capability to do certain things, but in this reading we get that different perspective that maybe women had more power than we thought. In addition, the two quotes you chose strongly drive home the assertion that women seemed to be highly valued and respected as you had mentioned. Your incorporation of the first quote shows that the Queen was indeed more wealthy than the King which was also something that surprised me greatly when reading. I also appreciated how you tied in the quotes you selected to common stereotypes you had heard of for women in the past such as barely having any jobs and solely being responsible for household chores and taking care of the children.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, by your usage of one of the quotations from the whole court sequence, I was really able to connect to just how fascinating you found this text to be. Throughout that whole quote, the women is being described as the magical, beautiful and unique figure that makes her seem superior to others. Your immense critical thinking that you included in your blog post actually made me want to think even deeper about this whole text which is incredible! Rarely if ever do I feel the urge to think even more after reading someone's perspective, but from start to finish of this post you truly made it unique and your own by A. Explaining the premise of the text B. Using quotes that actually played a pivotal role in relation to the theme of the story and C. Incorporating your own opinions and thoughts into the blog to give it that extra spice. Wonderful job!
Both of the quotes that you picked were very interested, and the first quote you picked, you had a different perspective to what I thought had happened, which is very interesting. When you had mentioned you think that women might have had more power then men because it seems as though the Queen had more money then the King, its interesting because maybe women were portrayed as less then men because they had too much of an ego as a whole. Overall, I would say its a interesting perspective and I would look more into that.
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