Ravishing Maidens: Writing Rape in Medieval French Literature and Law

2. The Poetics of Rape Law: Chr

2. The Poetics of Rape Law: Chretien de Troyes's Arthurian Romance Rape is not recommended but one will be allowed under specific conditions if the author feels it is necessary to make a point.1 Our close reading of female sexuality and male brutality in Wace's Vie de SainteMarguerite, disclosed there gestures belonging to the power struggle behind "romantic love." Wace, we know, was also the first writer of ver­ nacular Arthurian romance. The very name of Arthurian romance conjures up images of valor, courtliness, and gentility; we hardly associate courtly literature with sexual violence. Yet from the earliest stages of courtly ro­ mance, the character of Arthur is linked with the narration of rape. Wace recounts the liminal episode of Arthur's combat against the giant of Mont Saint­Michel.2 Arthur learns that a giant abducted a young virgin, Helen, niece of the Duke of Hoel, and sequestered her at Mont Saint­Michel. There Helen dies while being raped by the giant: La pucele volt porgesir, Mes tandre fu, nel pot sofrir; Trop fu ahugues, trop fu granz, Trop laiz, trop gros et trop pesanz; L'ame li fist del cors partir, Nel pot Heloine sostenir. (Brut, 2857­62) [The giant] wants to have carnal knowledge of the virgin, but she is tender and her body cannot bear it. He is too tall and too large, too ugly, too enormous and too heavy. Her soul is driven from her body; Helen cannot hold up under his weight. The Poetics of Rape Law 43 The act of avenging this rape is Arthur's first heroic exploit in France. Arthur goes immediately to fight the giant, whom he kills in singlehanded combat: je irai, dist Artus, avant, Si me combatrai au jaiant. (Brut, 2919—20) "I will go forth," said Arthur, "and fight the giant myself." Arthur's name, his rule, and his knights, will henceforth be associated with the motif of thepucelle esforciee. The significance of rape to romance is not often discussed.' Medieval romance structure depends on episodic units which recur systematically but are joined in ever­changing ways, units such as the knight's dubbing, the battle, the journey through the forest, the crossing of water, the hos­ pitality of an unknown chcitelmn, the feast day, and many other set pieces. What has rarely been said is that rape (either attempted rape or the defeat of a rapist) constitutes one of the episodic units used in the construction of a romance. Sexual violence is built into the very premise of Arthurian romance. It is a genre that by its definition must create the threat of rape. If Wace is considered the first author of Arthurian narrative in medieval France, Chretien de Troves is held to be its master.4 In his romance, Chre­ tien deftly conflates the themes of love and force so that male domination and female submission are coded as emotionally satisfying and aesthetically pleasing. In this unprecedented conflation, sexual violations, now roman­ ticized, can scarcely be recognized as violent acts. A fecund paradox informs Chretien's use of sexual violence: rape is both proscribed and moralized, banished and aestheticized, so that it can be con­ templated again and again. In romance, "ravishment" seems as natural as heterosexual love. Chretien blurs the lines between seduction and aggres­ sion. Violation can no longer be distinguished clearly. Rape becomes one of the poet's tropes. Chretien's troping of rape leads the audience to ignore the physicality of rape and its literal consequences so that the audience will focus instead on the ideology of chivalry. Chretien interrupts the immedi­ acy of violence to open a locus of moral reflection on chivalric codes. This chapter seeks out a "violent" reading precisely at the point where romance appears to shift in the opposite direction. Since Chretien tends to veer 44 The Poetics of Rape Law away from the literal violence of rape and embed it in romantic situations, the praxis of this chapter is to uncover the violence concealed in romantic love. Chretien's romances teach that rape is wrong, the act of base men. But they simultaneously aestheticize rape as a formulaic challenge: potential assaults are set up at regular narrative intervals so that knights can prove their mettle. The audience is led to ignore the literal consequences of vio­ lence against women. The medieval poet represents sexual violence in two types of paradig...