{"id":17221,"date":"2015-04-30T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-04-30T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leithart.level2d.com\/?p=2040"},"modified":"2015-04-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-04-30T00:00:00","slug":"double-coding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2015\/04\/double-coding\/","title":{"rendered":"Double Coding"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n<\/head>

Barbara Newman has argued in\u00a0Medieval Crossover<\/a> that we mistake medieval literature and thought if we look at it from a post-Renaissance angle of vision. Sacred and secular exist in every world, and the shift from medieval to modern doesn\u2019t change that. The issue, though, is which is the default option. For us, the secular is the obvious, natural state. For medieval, \u201cthe sacred was the inclusive whole in which the secular had to establish a niche\u201d (viii). This is why the profane comes up in the form of parody: \u201cgargoyles on cathedral roofs, obscene marginalia in books of hours, marital squabbles on misericords, lecherous monks in fabliaux, foxes preaching to hens in beast epics, and so forth.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t transgressive: \u201cTo parody the sacred is emphatically to engage with it, not to create an autonomous secular sphere. The sacred might be viewed with skeptical, profane, or jaded eyes, but it was still the sacred\u201d (viii). What makes Renaissance humanism different is \u201cneither a love of the classical world nor a penchant to mock the holy, for both had been alive and well for centuries. It is rather the imagining of a secular realm that could, not did not necessarily, engage in any way with the sacred\u201d (ix).<\/p>\n

The fact that the sacred and secular are both in play means that we need to attend to the \u201cdouble coding\u201d of even apparently secular texts.\u00a0Newman would object to interpretations such as that of Joan Ferrante (The Conflict of Love and Honor<\/a>, 14), who writes that \u201cChretien [de Troyes] alternates, in his romances, between a serious attempt to reconcile the ideals of courtly love with social responsibility and marriage, as in Erec and Enid<\/em>, and a satiric presentation of the unrealistic conventions of love-service, as in Cliges<\/em>. He evades the problem in Yvain<\/em>, and in Lancelot <\/em>he seems undecided between the serious and satiric approach. Certainly he ridicules Lancelot\u2019s devotion, but at the same time he makes of him a nobler figure, more humble and self-sacrificing than his other heroes. Chretien was apparently not able to resolve his own feelings about this story so he left the romance to someone else to finish.\u201d To Newman, that is altogether too smoothly modern: Chretien doesn\u2019t oscillate between the two registers, but keeps them together throughout the story.<\/p>\n

Newman examines Chretien\u2019s Charrette<\/em>, the tale of Lancelot and the cart, as an illustration: \u201cWhatever one finally thinks of Lancelot, a pattern of \u2018messianic reverberations\u2019 attends the hero, lending his feats a resonance beyond mere chivalric glory. For instance, his success is heralded by the fulfillment of prophecy. In the Future Cemetery episode, he lifts the cover of a tomb destined for the one who will free the captives of Logres. When his comrades warn that no one can cross the Sword Bridge \u2018any more than a man could enter his mother\u2019s womb and be reborn . . . , they echo the objection of Nicodemus to the teachings of Jesus. . . . To accomplish this feat Lancelot crawls on his hands and knees, removing most of his armor, and enters Gorre with hands and feet profusely bleeding. No attentive listener could have missed this allusion to the stigmata. If any did, King Bademagu\u2019s offer to heal the knight with \u2018the ointment of the three Maries\u2019 . . . would have recalled the women who came to anoint Christ\u2019s body on Easter morning. By an act of faith, Lancelot defeats what turn out to be imaginary lions \u2013 emblems of the power of hell \u2013 at the far end of the bridge. As he proceeds into Gorre, his countrymen hail him as their savior and vie for the honor of lodging him. When he liberates the queen, all the other prisoners go free and the custom of Gorre is broken.\u201d It is a harrowing of hell (60).<\/p>\n

But, Newman points out, Lancelot suffers and does all these Messianic things \u201cto consummate a love that is both adultery and treason.\u201d She doesn\u2019t think that the tension should be relieved. The ambiguity is \u201ca large part of Chretien\u2019s sen<\/em>\u201d (64). Lancelot is motivated by passion for Guenevere, but that passion makes him a \u201cknight of the cart,\u201d suffering messianically for the sake of his beloved. At the center of Chretien\u2019s story is the evangelical paradox of \u201cshame as honor . . . whether we take that to be a sage assessment of fin\u2019amor<\/em> or a chivalric perspective on Christ\u2019s passion.\u201d Through the double-coding, Chretien leaves open either profane or sacred readings, and more importantly shows that Lancelot\u2019s love is simultaneously \u201csublime and absurd; sublime and idolatrous; sublime and adulterous\u201d (65). <\/p>\n

The juxtaposition of the two is carried through not only in Lancelot\u2019s shameful ride in the cart, but in his shameful performance (required by Guenevere) in the tournament. It reaches its peak in the erotic worship that Lancelot offers when he comes to Guenevere\u2019s bed. She cites Lewis\u2019s judgment that this reflects the \u201cirreligion of the religion of love,\u201d but also the claim of other critics that Lancelot \u201ctreats the queen like a cors saint<\/em> \u2013 a holy body \u2013 because what she represents is indeed holy: the soul, the mystical body of Christ, Jerusalem, the Church.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Both reactions split apart what Chretien keeps together: \u201cThere could be no clearer case of double coding, as the poet\u2019s hyperbole elicits hyperbolic responses in both directions.\u201d She insists that \u201ca double judgment is required: Lancelot\u2019s love is sublime and <\/em>idolatrous, his behavior heroic and <\/em>ridiculous\u201d (69).<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Barbara Newman has argued in\u00a0Medieval Crossover that we mistake medieval literature and thought if we look at it from a post-Renaissance angle of vision. Sacred and secular exist in every world, and the shift from medieval to modern doesn\u2019t change that. The issue, though, is which is the default option. For us, the secular is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1265,905],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chretien-de-troyes","category-medieval-literature"],"yoast_head":"\nDouble Coding<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Barbara Newman has argued in Medieval Crossover that we mistake medieval literature and thought if we look at it from a post-Renaissance angle of\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2015\/04\/double-coding\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Double 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