troilus faints Flashcards
Critics who call T a woman for falling in love
Diana Steinberg: describes falling in love as a ‘feminizing experience’ for Troilus
Elaine Hansen: states that courtly love is ‘softening and unmanly’ by rendering the aristocratic male as ‘passive and submissive’; ‘feminized’ by courtly love- but she is assuming that passivity is for women?
the critic about his fainting as no erection
David Aers on the swoon: ‘fear lest his masculine identity, so heavily dependant on performance in the sexual domain, might not, as it were, stand up”
examples in Romances of men and women being presented as EQUALLY passive lovers. not just women.
Chretien de Troye’s ‘Cliges’
Alexander, a great warrior and honoured with many gifts by King Arthur, falls in love with queen Guinevere’s Lady-in-waiting. He does not tell anyone and is unaware that she loves him too (also doesnt tell anyone). both suffer and neither show feeling. during a voyage they both look so sick that G thinks they must be sea-sick. Alex describes his love like a candle etc. FInally, Queen brings them together since they are both so passive.
Alex is thus far more unassertive than T as a warrior-hero. it is simply typical courtly behaviour.
examples of other romantic heroes swooning
Apollonius in Gowers ‘Confessio Amantis’
swoons so deeply when his wife ‘dies’, and when she revives, he swoons again.
Dante Inferno: Dante faints from pity at the end of canto 5.
Boccaccio Troilo swoons when he hears of Anetor swap in Filo. Priam, Hector rub his wrists and wash his face as the proper treatment of a swoon. typical medieval practice.
Also Roman de la Rose, lover faints after receiving arrow. (chaucer’s translation)
Knights Tale, Acrite after exile. Aurelius in Franklin Tale ‘and with that word in swowne he fil adoun’.
12th century romance Florimont, whose protagonist also faints when being told to forget the one he loves. all examples of fainting romances
AND SO extraordinary, Idealizing and intense love is an attribute of greatness in these Romances, and fainting is a sign of that capacity.
other words for faint in MED
‘traunce’; ‘swelte’; ‘swouen’.
various forms of losing consciousness. furthermore, the reading of pronouns in MED citations for them show how much more men swoon over women than vice versa.
The greatest warrior swoon in medieval romance
classic example is Lancelot, in the 13’c prose ‘Lancelot’. his love is deemed so great that it is honoured magically. he faints into his comrades arms when having first interview with Guinevere. Love inspires him in battle, but also destroys him. he grows pale, and sits in a meadow weeping into his sink garment. A fainting hero of western middle ages, fainting at most important moment of his emotional life (when meeting G).
Chaucer sets up the worth of idealized passive love through comparison between T and D
critics who call D more ‘manly’ LOL
D’s courting is entirely result-driven. only to make the journey shorter. although T’s courtly love may be deemed ineffective, it is atleast the loving of a man that loves. D unidealized seduction: we think of ‘hende’ Nicholas’ approach to love in Miller:
‘and prively he caught hire by the queynte… And heeld hire harde by the haunchbores’/
The romantic, idealized passivity of T differentiates him from these creepy men. passive loving is important in the discourse about ways of loving and valuing in T and C
whats good about the faint
reminds the audience of T sensitivity. when P ridicules him, its because he sees this passive loving as ineffective (which it is in tradition), NOT because effeminate. and P isnt exactly a love expert as a result lbh…
also, P and C respond to the faint naturally with all the traditional routines. takes it seriously.
the peak situation which encourages the swoon
in arguament against critics like Aers and Hansen who think its impotence…
v stressful time for T. thinks he has no hope with her now that she is so angry. not even in bed!! C despairing Boethian speech on false felicity etc… not looking good for T. she is in tears and he feels responsible for the lies that have caused her grief
Jill Mann: ‘the swoon is an expression of T’s acceptance of… the destructive implications of the situation, to which, unlike P, he is fully alive’.
faints from love and guilt… not a floppy dick…
when they throw him into bed, comedy clashes with the romance. he is just trying to get them into bed together. doenst care about the worth of passive loving. simularly when C says ‘is this a mannes game’? she means ‘why you not getting into bed with me? offended.
the effect of P comic throwing T into bed
by turning the swoon into a farce, its medical/ethical importance remian intact, as well as its position in Romantic Tradition of Troilus.
why we imposing it as female?!
By calling T feminine for fainting, and womanised, we are imposing our own cultural fictions and norms onto the literature of Chaucer’s period. Judith Butler argues that there is no ‘natural’ aspect of gender behaviour, but only ‘acts’ of gender that constitute its reality. the repeated act of masculine fainting in middle english lit deem it as an accepted ‘masculine’ act. It is these actions that create gender norms.
we have lost these statuses over time. it isnt same anymore, but we must read it in the context of the period.
