In class we debated over whether or not Feirefiz's conversion was sincere. I think most of us agreed that the conversion was questionable. It seems that Feirefiz only converts for the love of Repanse de Schoye. We are given much evidence of this in the text. "'If I were baptized for your sakes, would Baptism help me to win love?' asked the infidel son of Gahmuret" (p. 404). However, before we put the subject to rest, I wanted to talk about Feirefiz after the conversion.
Feirefiz's life in India, after the conversion to Christianity, seems to prove that a true conversion did take place on his part. Wolfram tells us, "Feirefiz has letters sent throughout the land of India describing the Christian life, which had not prospered so much till then" (p.408). Although the text only provides us with this very short and very brief description of Feirefiz's life post conversion, it is evident that his conversion was valid. Thus, even though Feirefiz might not have chosen to be baptized as a way to become a Christian, he still embraced Christianity afterwards. As a true convert, he uses letters to spread Christianity in the heathen world.
On the other hand, this short passage can also be used to validate our class conclusion: the conversion of Feirefiz was for the love of Repanse de Schoye and therefore cannot be considered a true conversion to Christianity. Since Wolfram provides no indication of what is said in these letters, it could be assumed that Feirefiz is solely praising the Christian life because through it he obtained the woman he most desired. It is obvious that the marriage was a prosperous one: the couple had five children. The image created of Feirefiz's life after his conversion differs from that of the wandering playboy knight who fights many battles and has many women. It is the life of a content married man. This happiness could possibly stem more from his wife than Christianity.
Showing posts with label Feirefiz. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Feirefiz. Show all posts
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Saturday, November 10, 2007
A Tentative Theory of Feirefiz
We finished on Thursday with mention of the profound strangeness of the backstory Wolfram invents for his text of Parzival: translated from the French version of "Master Kyot," which is in turn translated from the "heathenish script" authored by "the infidel Flegetanis" (232), who apparently learned it through astrology. This fictional genesis of the poem can, I think, be connected to our main preoccupation from Thursday's class, Feirefiz and the nature and quality of his conversion. Is there a way in which the hybrid, exuberant, Love-obsessed, ultimately (if just technically) sanctified character exemplifies or encapsulates the hybrid, exuberant, Love-obsessed, ultimately sanctified text?
Perhaps the most arresting and thought-provoking description of Feirefiz's admittedly outlandish appearance occurs during the exhausted stand-off into which his incognito single-combat with Parzival lapses. Parizval, trying to characterize the infidel half-brother whom he knows only by report, likens his "complexion" to "a parchment, with writing." (This is not the first time a German poetic hero has been described in explicitly textual terms: at one point in the Nibelungenlied, Siegfried appears "as though limned on parchment with all a master's skill" [48].) In such an otherwise verbose poem, Feirefiz's immediate and starkly emphatic response carries extraordinary force: "'I am he,' replied the Infidel" (372).
In other words, Parzival represents Feirefiz as just such an example of "heathenish script" as Wolfram has already claimed his poem, in origin, to have been - and Feirefiz lends credence to this representation by the clarity of his assent. It makes sense that the two elements in the poem whose written-ness is most insisted upon (or, in Feirefiz's case, metaphorically ascribed [inscribed?]) are also the two which were Wolfram's personal additions: the fictional "heathen" textual history and the character of Feirefiz (with his own heathen backstory).
So Feirefiz, in appearance and in identity, is black, "heathenish" "writing" upon white (Christian?) "parchment." This seems to establish the white, Euro-Christian element - the parchment, without which basis the writing could not exist - as the more essential or integral aspect of Feirefiz's identity, a move which Parzival voices when telling Feirefiz that at Arthur's court, "we shall find our own true race" (375). (I think this holds even if you interpret "race" in more limited terms as "family" or "kindred.") If we go back to the example of Wolfram's feigned textual history, we find a yet stronger basis for an inherent or foundational Christianity pervading these "heathenish" textual artifacts. Flegetanis' writings appear to have been "heathenish" only in form, their "script": in content they evidently possessed all of the Christian connotations, at least in potentis, of Wolfram's "translated" version. There is a hint that, in this original version, form obscured content: "No infidel art would avail us to reveal the nature of the Gral and how one came to know its secrets" (232). (This obviously reminds us of Feirefiz's inability, while still non-Christian, even to see the Gral; he and other infidels can only know it through its effects, not in its Christian essence.) All it apparently took was translation to a new form to unlock the innate meaning of this content.
Similarly, Feirefiz's "writing" could be seen as conveying essentially Christian content in a garbled, "heathenish script" that warps or obscures the clear understanding and expression of that content. He seems, for example, to evince an unconscious and a priori understanding of Christian doctrine, as when good Trinitarian dogma leaks through his speech about the relationship between himself, Parzival, and their father: "If I lay hold of truth, both my father and you, and I, too, were but one, though seen as three distinct entities" (374). This may be why Feirefiz's conversion takes place so easily and with such conspicuous lack of conscious spiritual avowal. Nothing in Feirefiz needed to be changed, revised, rewritten. His conversion is simply his more or less mechanical translation into a new form. After his baptism, he was a Christian all along.
Feirefiz's relative indifference to spiritual matters should not pose too insurmountable of a hurdle for us in any case, since this is another trait that he shares with the "translated" poem. Or rather, Wolfram is not indifferent to spiritual matters, but he sees them, even at their most exalted, as indissolubly linked with the humane, the physical, the fleshly. Even Parzival the enlightened Gral-king gets to keep his wife too. The attainment of higher and higher degrees of selflessness and fidelity in the service of human Love can not only parallel (as in Gawan's case) but facilitate (as with Parzival) higher and higher spiritual attainments. And, as Jolie and Katlyn have been exploring in their postings, the feminine Love-object shades into and blends with the goal of the poem's spiritual endeavors. Feirefiz's trajectory in this regard, at least from the point of view of a contemporary reader, is less clear (one does tend to feel sorry for Secundille), but devotion to Love certainly leads to his sanctification too.
Just as only his love for Repanse de Schoye and conversion for the sake of that love allow Feirefiz to see the Gral, so the Gral in Wolfram's poem only appears through the conceptual prism of the love-service tradition and the general chivalric institutionalization of Love. I can imagine Wolfram writing a poem about Love without the Gral, but I don't think a Wolfram poem about the Gral but without Love (like, for example, the French prose Grail romances) is even conceivable. And indeed, in his final lines Wolfram insists that any (purely hypothetical, of course) woman for whom he was writing "must" admit to having been pleased (411). In short, to propose a tentative answer to the question raised on Thursday about Feirefiz's role in the poem: with reference, again, to Wolfram's fictional backstory about the translation of his own text out of "heathenish script," Feirefiz's role in the poem may be that he is the poem.
Perhaps the most arresting and thought-provoking description of Feirefiz's admittedly outlandish appearance occurs during the exhausted stand-off into which his incognito single-combat with Parzival lapses. Parizval, trying to characterize the infidel half-brother whom he knows only by report, likens his "complexion" to "a parchment, with writing." (This is not the first time a German poetic hero has been described in explicitly textual terms: at one point in the Nibelungenlied, Siegfried appears "as though limned on parchment with all a master's skill" [48].) In such an otherwise verbose poem, Feirefiz's immediate and starkly emphatic response carries extraordinary force: "'I am he,' replied the Infidel" (372).
In other words, Parzival represents Feirefiz as just such an example of "heathenish script" as Wolfram has already claimed his poem, in origin, to have been - and Feirefiz lends credence to this representation by the clarity of his assent. It makes sense that the two elements in the poem whose written-ness is most insisted upon (or, in Feirefiz's case, metaphorically ascribed [inscribed?]) are also the two which were Wolfram's personal additions: the fictional "heathen" textual history and the character of Feirefiz (with his own heathen backstory).
So Feirefiz, in appearance and in identity, is black, "heathenish" "writing" upon white (Christian?) "parchment." This seems to establish the white, Euro-Christian element - the parchment, without which basis the writing could not exist - as the more essential or integral aspect of Feirefiz's identity, a move which Parzival voices when telling Feirefiz that at Arthur's court, "we shall find our own true race" (375). (I think this holds even if you interpret "race" in more limited terms as "family" or "kindred.") If we go back to the example of Wolfram's feigned textual history, we find a yet stronger basis for an inherent or foundational Christianity pervading these "heathenish" textual artifacts. Flegetanis' writings appear to have been "heathenish" only in form, their "script": in content they evidently possessed all of the Christian connotations, at least in potentis, of Wolfram's "translated" version. There is a hint that, in this original version, form obscured content: "No infidel art would avail us to reveal the nature of the Gral and how one came to know its secrets" (232). (This obviously reminds us of Feirefiz's inability, while still non-Christian, even to see the Gral; he and other infidels can only know it through its effects, not in its Christian essence.) All it apparently took was translation to a new form to unlock the innate meaning of this content.
Similarly, Feirefiz's "writing" could be seen as conveying essentially Christian content in a garbled, "heathenish script" that warps or obscures the clear understanding and expression of that content. He seems, for example, to evince an unconscious and a priori understanding of Christian doctrine, as when good Trinitarian dogma leaks through his speech about the relationship between himself, Parzival, and their father: "If I lay hold of truth, both my father and you, and I, too, were but one, though seen as three distinct entities" (374). This may be why Feirefiz's conversion takes place so easily and with such conspicuous lack of conscious spiritual avowal. Nothing in Feirefiz needed to be changed, revised, rewritten. His conversion is simply his more or less mechanical translation into a new form. After his baptism, he was a Christian all along.
Feirefiz's relative indifference to spiritual matters should not pose too insurmountable of a hurdle for us in any case, since this is another trait that he shares with the "translated" poem. Or rather, Wolfram is not indifferent to spiritual matters, but he sees them, even at their most exalted, as indissolubly linked with the humane, the physical, the fleshly. Even Parzival the enlightened Gral-king gets to keep his wife too. The attainment of higher and higher degrees of selflessness and fidelity in the service of human Love can not only parallel (as in Gawan's case) but facilitate (as with Parzival) higher and higher spiritual attainments. And, as Jolie and Katlyn have been exploring in their postings, the feminine Love-object shades into and blends with the goal of the poem's spiritual endeavors. Feirefiz's trajectory in this regard, at least from the point of view of a contemporary reader, is less clear (one does tend to feel sorry for Secundille), but devotion to Love certainly leads to his sanctification too.
Just as only his love for Repanse de Schoye and conversion for the sake of that love allow Feirefiz to see the Gral, so the Gral in Wolfram's poem only appears through the conceptual prism of the love-service tradition and the general chivalric institutionalization of Love. I can imagine Wolfram writing a poem about Love without the Gral, but I don't think a Wolfram poem about the Gral but without Love (like, for example, the French prose Grail romances) is even conceivable. And indeed, in his final lines Wolfram insists that any (purely hypothetical, of course) woman for whom he was writing "must" admit to having been pleased (411). In short, to propose a tentative answer to the question raised on Thursday about Feirefiz's role in the poem: with reference, again, to Wolfram's fictional backstory about the translation of his own text out of "heathenish script," Feirefiz's role in the poem may be that he is the poem.
Monday, November 5, 2007
Love an Other
I have to say, Parzival compacts a great deal of themes into small lines. Wolfram’s concept Love is perhaps the most complex of them all. Love is the burden Gawan and Parzival endure because of their chivalric grace and nobility. The most notable passage about Love and the afflicted’s nobility is on page 271 when Wolfram interjects “Gawan cannot escape Love’s making him unhappy. So of what use is it if I interpose, however much I say? A man of worth should not fend off Love, if only because Love must help to save him.” (Von Ecshenbach 270-271) Wolfram attributes Gawan’s level of suffering to his elevated status, proclaiming that the best of the best anguish over love the way noble Gawan does.
Parzival’s Love anguish comes in perhaps the most symbolic of ways. He watches a falcon injury a goose from a flock, and three drops of blood from the wound form the likeness of his wife on the snow. Putting aside the strangeness of the image, the blood represents, in a tangible way, the torment Parzival feels being away from his wife. Also, the fact that Parzival has to be reminded of the way his wife looks in order to be anguished by her absence shows the sensibility of the poet as well as the court. In order to be fixated on a woman, a knight must either gaze upon her or carry with him a fetish, or love token in the case of the knights. The violence which causes the blood to represent the image of Parzival’s lady also hearkens back to the violence Parzival commits in his lady’s name. Love is inexorably linked to violence in Parzival’s world, by the nature of the jousting necessary to prove and win his love, and the fact that he sees his lady in blood symbolizes the suffering he and other knights endure because of their love.
What’s interesting about the obsessive gazing Parzival engages in is that once he engages in battle again and loses sight of the blood, “Mistress Reason restored him to his senses.” (Von Ecshenbach 151) Perhaps it is Parzival’s ignorance, his still child-like understanding of love, which causes him to gaze upon the figure of his lady with such obsessive fervor. Like Gawan, a more learned and more mature knight, Parzival’s love for his lady is described as a burden, but unlike Gawan, love incapacitates Parzival. “But Parzival sat there lost to the world, thanks to those spots of blood and imperious Love, who also robs me of my sense and sets my heart in turmoil.” (Von Ecshenbach 150) While Gawan’s love compels him to fight for his lady, Parzival becomes obsessive, ignoring the battle and acting in a way unbecoming of a knight.
In the same way, Herzeloyde also bears the burden of love but in a much more terminal fashion. The hermit tells Parzival “‘No sooner had you left your mother than she died – that was what she had for her love.’” (Von Ecshenbach 243) Her attachment to her son, perhaps caused by her unconventional fosterage, results in her being unable to bear Love’s burden and the hurt of Parzival’s absence. Herzeloyde and Parzival are both overwhelmed by the absence of the one they love, but it’s just too much for poor Herzeloyde. Although the fixation is similar, Parzival overcomes his obsession and moves on, whereas his mother dies. Also the interiority of Parzival’s obsession with the Gral mimics the internalization of Herzeloyde’s separation pains, in that she grieves Parzival’s absence so much that she drops dead because of it.
Wolfram’s opinion of Love, who causes such turmoil and strife, seems to be redeemed in Fierefiz. The heathen, or for our purposes the Other, is baptized because of his love for the lovely Repanse de Schoye. Although he has spent years jousting on behalf of ladies, he considered himself stronger than love. “The sight of her pierces my heart. I imagined myself so strong that no woman, wed or unwed, could rob me of my happiness.” (Von Ecshenbach 402) However, unlike the other figures in the poem, Feirefiz gets a better deal than the other love-suffering fools. With the baptism, not only is Feirefiz no longer a heathen, but he also immediately marries Repanse de Schoye. We hear no more of his suffering on behalf of love. The baptism acts as an extinguisher, quelling the fiery lust within Feirefiz and allowing him salvation. In the case of Feirefiz, the Other, the pains of love led him to deliverance from heathenism and to God.
Parzival’s Love anguish comes in perhaps the most symbolic of ways. He watches a falcon injury a goose from a flock, and three drops of blood from the wound form the likeness of his wife on the snow. Putting aside the strangeness of the image, the blood represents, in a tangible way, the torment Parzival feels being away from his wife. Also, the fact that Parzival has to be reminded of the way his wife looks in order to be anguished by her absence shows the sensibility of the poet as well as the court. In order to be fixated on a woman, a knight must either gaze upon her or carry with him a fetish, or love token in the case of the knights. The violence which causes the blood to represent the image of Parzival’s lady also hearkens back to the violence Parzival commits in his lady’s name. Love is inexorably linked to violence in Parzival’s world, by the nature of the jousting necessary to prove and win his love, and the fact that he sees his lady in blood symbolizes the suffering he and other knights endure because of their love.
What’s interesting about the obsessive gazing Parzival engages in is that once he engages in battle again and loses sight of the blood, “Mistress Reason restored him to his senses.” (Von Ecshenbach 151) Perhaps it is Parzival’s ignorance, his still child-like understanding of love, which causes him to gaze upon the figure of his lady with such obsessive fervor. Like Gawan, a more learned and more mature knight, Parzival’s love for his lady is described as a burden, but unlike Gawan, love incapacitates Parzival. “But Parzival sat there lost to the world, thanks to those spots of blood and imperious Love, who also robs me of my sense and sets my heart in turmoil.” (Von Ecshenbach 150) While Gawan’s love compels him to fight for his lady, Parzival becomes obsessive, ignoring the battle and acting in a way unbecoming of a knight.
In the same way, Herzeloyde also bears the burden of love but in a much more terminal fashion. The hermit tells Parzival “‘No sooner had you left your mother than she died – that was what she had for her love.’” (Von Ecshenbach 243) Her attachment to her son, perhaps caused by her unconventional fosterage, results in her being unable to bear Love’s burden and the hurt of Parzival’s absence. Herzeloyde and Parzival are both overwhelmed by the absence of the one they love, but it’s just too much for poor Herzeloyde. Although the fixation is similar, Parzival overcomes his obsession and moves on, whereas his mother dies. Also the interiority of Parzival’s obsession with the Gral mimics the internalization of Herzeloyde’s separation pains, in that she grieves Parzival’s absence so much that she drops dead because of it.
Wolfram’s opinion of Love, who causes such turmoil and strife, seems to be redeemed in Fierefiz. The heathen, or for our purposes the Other, is baptized because of his love for the lovely Repanse de Schoye. Although he has spent years jousting on behalf of ladies, he considered himself stronger than love. “The sight of her pierces my heart. I imagined myself so strong that no woman, wed or unwed, could rob me of my happiness.” (Von Ecshenbach 402) However, unlike the other figures in the poem, Feirefiz gets a better deal than the other love-suffering fools. With the baptism, not only is Feirefiz no longer a heathen, but he also immediately marries Repanse de Schoye. We hear no more of his suffering on behalf of love. The baptism acts as an extinguisher, quelling the fiery lust within Feirefiz and allowing him salvation. In the case of Feirefiz, the Other, the pains of love led him to deliverance from heathenism and to God.
Sunday, November 4, 2007
A New Origin of Monsters
Though we have discussed in class the lack of obvious monsters in this text, I want to address a certain paragraph that appears to shed some light on the idea of monsters and where they can be found. Though the Saracens in Baghdad are not depicted as the monstrous, it appears the label has been placed on another distant ethnic group. It is an easy to overlook the account where one reads of where Malcreatiure is from, but in the description, there is a good amount of information that depicts the monstrousity of people in a foreign land.
In Wolfram’s explanation of Malcreatiure, he begins with the story of creation in which Adam advises the women to “avoid numerous herbs that would deform human offspring and so dishonour his race” (263). In this background of Malcreatiure, we receive interesting news: Feirefiz has traveled to India where he has won land. Here in India, there are “many such people […] whose appearance was deformed and no denying it – wild, outlandish features did they display” (263)!
It is interesting to note that the Saracens in Baghdad are civilized courtly people, but there still exists people that appear monstrous – they are just in Southeast Asia. Though we have this integration of other races in this story, we find another realm where people appear deformed. Wolfram’s integration of the Biblical story of Adam helps to reinforce religious reasoning for their appearance, making the deformed heathens in the wrong.
The Queen of Secundille (leader in India) also lacks religion and instead, is extremely wealthy and does not appear to be in need. However, her attempts for further information on Anfortas and the Gral sends a multitude of gifts his way, including Cundrie and her brother, Malcreatiure. In this passage, we understand the origin of these two “human wonders” who are monstrous. It appears our main ‘monsters’ in this story actually come from India, and they are not scarce.
I want to also quickly note that Feirefiz, though he is the eldest son of Gahmuret and the genuine king, travels to ‘othered’ lands such as India for conquest. Though Feirefiz does travel to Europe later, it appears that Feirefiz’s outward appearance does not give him the right to claim his lands his father left. Instead, he must conquer his own place, and he has found a land that he can gain control. Of course, the land he conquers, India, is a land filled with deformed people.
Though I agree that Wolfram is trying to allow for a more encompassing text here in terms of race, he appears to still be confined by the attitudes of certain ‘others’ in his vision. Feirefiz is able to conquer a kingdom, but it is a land with many deformed and considered monstrous people. Is this because Feirefiz is a heathen and that’s the best he will be able to conquer? How will he fare when faced with a European like Parzival? I guess that’s for our next reading…
In Wolfram’s explanation of Malcreatiure, he begins with the story of creation in which Adam advises the women to “avoid numerous herbs that would deform human offspring and so dishonour his race” (263). In this background of Malcreatiure, we receive interesting news: Feirefiz has traveled to India where he has won land. Here in India, there are “many such people […] whose appearance was deformed and no denying it – wild, outlandish features did they display” (263)!
It is interesting to note that the Saracens in Baghdad are civilized courtly people, but there still exists people that appear monstrous – they are just in Southeast Asia. Though we have this integration of other races in this story, we find another realm where people appear deformed. Wolfram’s integration of the Biblical story of Adam helps to reinforce religious reasoning for their appearance, making the deformed heathens in the wrong.
The Queen of Secundille (leader in India) also lacks religion and instead, is extremely wealthy and does not appear to be in need. However, her attempts for further information on Anfortas and the Gral sends a multitude of gifts his way, including Cundrie and her brother, Malcreatiure. In this passage, we understand the origin of these two “human wonders” who are monstrous. It appears our main ‘monsters’ in this story actually come from India, and they are not scarce.
I want to also quickly note that Feirefiz, though he is the eldest son of Gahmuret and the genuine king, travels to ‘othered’ lands such as India for conquest. Though Feirefiz does travel to Europe later, it appears that Feirefiz’s outward appearance does not give him the right to claim his lands his father left. Instead, he must conquer his own place, and he has found a land that he can gain control. Of course, the land he conquers, India, is a land filled with deformed people.
Though I agree that Wolfram is trying to allow for a more encompassing text here in terms of race, he appears to still be confined by the attitudes of certain ‘others’ in his vision. Feirefiz is able to conquer a kingdom, but it is a land with many deformed and considered monstrous people. Is this because Feirefiz is a heathen and that’s the best he will be able to conquer? How will he fare when faced with a European like Parzival? I guess that’s for our next reading…
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