Lanval

Throughout the ages, the portrayal of women has undergone dramatic change. Taking Beowulf, for instance and the queen Wealhtheow; she was a woman of elegance and was portrayed as an almost “glittery” being. This reflected the attitude of the time – women were to present themselves according to their station. Lanval spins a different image of women. This may have been because Maire de France wrote with a secular, aristocratic, and feminine view point. Regardless, the women in Lanval were depicted as “sexy,” and played a more dominate role over males, which is quite the departure from the aforementioned Wealhtheow. Take, for instance, the moment Lanval first met the fairy maiden: “The single gown she wore was sheer/and made her shapely form appear” (144). Later, after Lanval returns her love, “she presented him her heart/and her body, every part” (145). This idea of a strong, sexy woman is furthered by the entrance of other fairies in Arthur’s court, which reduces the men to drooling imbeciles (which may have been another incentive for Marie’s portrayal of women, or at least I would like to think so):

On two fine steeds, riding apace,
Who were extremely fair of face.
Of purple taffeta a sheath
They wore with nothing underneath. (152)