RITUAL AND THE AMBIGUOUS POWER OF WOMEN IN CHRÉTIEN DE TROYES' "YVAIN ROMAN"

• Published in: Journal of ritual studies Vol. 18; no. 1; pp. 1 - 15
• Main Author: Fekete, David J.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh 01-01-2004
• Subjects: Animal behavior; Chivalry; Courts; Douglas, Mary; Honour and shame; Impurities; Literature; Narratives; Nobility; Peasants; Poetry; Pollution; Purification rituals; Religious rituals; Religious studies; Ritual; Ritual pollution; Rituals; Social structure; Social structures; Troyes, Chrétien de; Women
• ISSN: 0890-1112

In this article I argue that the "order" of knighthood and the relations between knight and lady called courtoisie are highly symbolic codes structured by ritual in twelfth century society. The ambiguous relations between knights, as symbols of power and danger, and ladies, as objects of devotion with little explicit authority, generate complex pollution beliefs. By applying Mary Douglas' analysis of ritual to Chrétien de Troyes' Yvain Romance, problems concerning the break and resolution of the couple's relationship can be understood as governed by ritual dynamics. By understanding the break and resolution of the couple as a ritual issue, the quest section of the text remains related to both the beginning and the conclusion of the Romance. Douglas' analysis of ritual thus offers a solution to a textual problem that literati find problematic, if not insoluble.