Noble knights and cunning women?

When reading the history of Marie de France, her prolouge to her Lais, and the first story (Equitan) I was struck by a realization that I have never read an Arthurian story or legend that portrayed an incredibly dark side of normal (non-magic) women.

I have read and watched different versions of the life of King Arthur (Merlin on BBC, a book series about his story but set in high school, etc.), but no versions leave the reader with a bad taste in their mouth. They tend to be filled with magic, love, and knightly excitement. Marie would probably barf if she knew of our versions. Time is cruel to some ledgends. Yes, Arthur ends up being betrayed, and ends up dying way too soon, in all the versions, but the women aren't nearly as engaging as those in Marie's works.

The women in Marie's works are shown as very cunning and strong creatures that can over power a man with no trouble at all. In Equitan the woman dies, because her husband physically drowned her, but she's the one that came up with the plan to kill her husband in the first place. Marie de France may be fighting modern stereotypes about how women thought and acted back in the 12th century. She gives the reader an almost twisted version of everything thought about in history books and allows us to assume that we truly do not know nearly as much as we thought. Women could have been the driving force of all society by acting through men. We truly do not know how wonderful all the women in this time period could have been because they did not have the correct freedom or resources. This relates back to my Virigina Woolf blog posted previously.

#reading #women #literature #writing #legend #Arthurian