No Names
One thing that I have noticed in Erec and Enide is that names are given out sparingly. Almost all of the characters that are introduced into the story are nameless for at least a portion of the narrative, only receiving a name if they are essential to the story. Enide is referred to as the maiden with the white dress for 30 pages, until the actual wedding comes up in the storyline. Everyone has made such a big deal out of how great she and Erec are together and yet, Chretien writes, “When Erec received hs wife, she had to be named by her proper name, for unless a woman is called by her proper name she is not married. People did not yet know her name, but now they learned it for the first time†(62). It seems awfully strange to me that they are the talk of the town, but no one knows her name until they get married.
This strange absence of names is furthered by Erec who always withholds his name unless it is absolutely essential that he give it. He fights Kay, one of his own friends, because Erec is unrecognizeable, and Erec is too stubborn to tell him his name. Then, he also doesn’t give his name to Guivret, another friend, as they charge at each other during the night. Instead he nearly gets himself killed by blindly assaulting Guivret without giving any warning. He also has numerous other battles in which he never gives his name, which seems really strange.
Being that the ultimate goal of a knight, indeed a goal highly touted by Chretien, is to win glory for himself and to uphold good morals. And yet, since there was no widespread visual communication in medieval times that would allow people to recognize a person by his face, it would seem that a name would be essential for establishing glory for oneself. So it strikes me as odd that names are avoided as much as possible in a story so concerned with a hero becoming renowned. Are there any thoughts?
mollie wrote:
I know this is totally a cliché, but maybe it’s because names have power? If Erec is trying to establish a name for himself, then he would want to be careful about whom he gives it to. He wouldn’t necessarily want to tell it to some other knight who he’s going to fight right then, because if he loses, not only is there the shame of the loss, but also the shame that the other knight knows who he is, the allegedly unbeatable Erec. Then word would spread that Erec had been beaten, and all his hard-won glory would drip down the drain.
There’s also no guarantee that the other knight is an honorable guy, and Erec certainly wouldn’t want to debase himself by giving his name to a person without honor.
As for Enide, not giving her a name until she marries Erec is kind of saying she’s not really a person until she gets married. She doesn’t even get to talk until after they’re married; up until the point of the marriage, she barely says anything, and when she does, it’s always Chrétien speaking for her. There’s no direct quotation at all. I suppose you could make it into a larger statement about the worth of women in general in Chrétien’s estimation. He seems to be saying a woman needs a man in order to have an identity, and indeed, almost all of the women in his romances are bound in some way to a man.
Posted 19 Sep 2007 at 9:50 pm ¶
Agravaine wrote:
Conversely, however, all of the men need a woman. Chretien portrays Lancelot as far more dependent on Guinevere than the other way around, which is what makes here harsh characterization so troubling and so effective. We see the greatest knight in the world reduced to hanging himself by his horse.
As to the initial question , it serves two purposes. On the one hand, anonymity offers two powerful literary uses, namely the mystery of the surprise and the ability for mistaken/assumed identities. On the other, it allows deeds to be accomplished on merit rather than reputation, as in anonymous law school grading. Large chunks of Malory are devoted to periods when Lancelot, Gareth, and if memory serves Tristram are forced to earn their credibility by performing feats under assumed names.
Posted 19 Sep 2007 at 10:25 pm ¶
BraveSirRobin wrote:
To elaborate on Agravaine’s excellent point about merit vs. reputation, the withholding of Lancelot’s name seems to me a brilliant device with which to underscore the essentially private nature of Lancelot’s chivalry, as compared with Meleagant’s very public self-promotion (Meleagant being described, after all, as Lancelot’s “evil twin”). The name “Lancelot,” carrying the public reputation of King Arthur’s court, is withheld and hence effaced by the public epithet “knight of the cart,” which nevertheless carries a positive connotation, but only privately for the Queen.
As to the “mystery of the surprise” that this “knight of the cart” turns out to be Lancelot, it gave me the kind of anticipatory pleasure I associate with waiting for James Bond to introduce himself while all the other characters wonder admiringly, “Who was that masked man anyway?” This “How little they know” audience-flattery would presumably work on a medieval readership immediately familiar with Lancelot’s identity from the title or a common narrative tradition.
Posted 19 Sep 2007 at 11:53 pm ¶
BraveSirRobin wrote:
Also, amazing how much emphasis is placed on those two fateful steps of hesitation between Lancelot’s rational concern for public reputation and irrational submission to private love.
Posted 20 Sep 2007 at 12:18 am ¶
cristinamabob wrote:
I would agree with Mollie on this one. A name needs to be “earned.” In most of the stories, if a name was to be told to the person inquiring, then something had to be done in order for that name to be announced. Win a battle, be a curious youth (Perceval), give directions in regards to which way someone went, etc… It also left the option to remain anonymous open, and therefore build renown without being associated with any sort of lineage or prior conceptions (Knight with the Lion instead of Yvain). It would also normally leave the option open for a good knight to omit his name if he were to lose a match, but usually he is at the mercy of the knight who does win, and is demanded to speak his name.
Maybe they knew Enide by a nickname because Enide was too difficult to say… very unlikely, but possible. Or perhaps it all happened so fast (the marriage and all) that people only had time for the typical word of mouth gossip, and she became known as “that incredibly beautiful woman Erec is wedding.” I don’t think it reflects Chretien’s feelings towards women on purpose.
Posted 25 Sep 2007 at 10:32 pm ¶