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A Well Dressed Menagerie: Defining and Teaching Courtliness with Animals and Clothing in the Lais of Marie de France

In this dissertation, I explore how the twelfth-century poet Marie de France combines animals and clothing to define and teach noble conduct in her Lais collection. I suggest that the nexus she creates between animals, dress, and virtue is chimeric but consistent, appearing differently in each narrative situation but recurring as a means of demonstrating moral conduct. My chapters explore three of her lais that combine beasts and attire to address the unique way Marie features the animal-clothing combination in each to teach distinctive lessons in virtuous behavior. My chapter on Guigemar argues that Marie uses the magical hind and the exchange of a knotted shirt and a belt to rework Ovidian anti-love themes to teach the value of being tightly bound in loyal love. Chapter 3 analyzes the eponymous knight's removal of his clothing as the mechanism that triggers his appearance as a werewolf in Marie's lai Bisclavret. I show that Bisclavret's werewolf form is like a sartorial skin under which his selfhood remains unaltered rather than a true transformation, and I argue that Marie uses the knight's appearance as a wolf so that the loyalty he demonstrates to his king and his homosocial community becomes voluntary and therefore serves as a model of noble conduct to the reader. Chapter 4 discusses Marie's use of the characters' relationships to animals and dress in her lai Lanval to assert the importance of a feminine contribution to leadership in society.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:unt.edu/info:ark/67531/metadc1833468
Date08 1900
CreatorsClark, C. Natalie Massie
ContributorsSmith, Nicole Danielle, Upchurch, Robert, 1967-, Vanhoutte, Jacqueline, 1968-
PublisherUniversity of North Texas
Source SetsUniversity of North Texas
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis or Dissertation
Formativ, 182 pages, Text
Coverage12th century
RightsPublic, Clark, C. Natalie Massie, Copyright, Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights Reserved.

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