English 83

Parzival comes from a different (German) culture than both Chretien and the Prose Lancelot cycle.  It is hard not to notice some of the dissimilarities implied by the narrative discrepancies of Parzival and the The Story of the Grail.  In particular, Parzival makes interesting choices surrounding sexuality, compared with Chretien’s Romance.  For example when Parzival encounters the lady besieged in the castle and she visits him at night:

She wore formidable armour: a white silken shift!  What could be more challenging than a woman bearing down on a man in this fashion?  The lady had thrown round her  long mantle of samite.  Her step betrayed the cares that haarassed her…So far as lovers’ embraces went both he and the Queen were dunces.  The wooing and doing went thus.  THe maiden was unappy and deeply embarassed.  ‘Did he pull her into bed with him at all?’  Alas he has no experience of that.  Yet without experience he does take her in under truce that they do not bring their appeasing limbs together. (106)

This text in Parzival is sexually explicit in a way that no other previous work seems to have been.  It implies an earthiness, perhaps even a kind of vulgarity.  The Queen is described in sensual terms, her appearance is emphasized and eroticized.  The narrator expresses disappointment that Parzival does not engage sexually with this woman.  It is as though this narrator is frustrated with Parzival’s purity.  This is almost the opposite of Chretien’s rendition of the same scene:

And he kissed her and held her tightly in his arms.  He placed her gently and comfortably beneath the coverlet, and she let him kiss her, and I do not believe it displeased her.  Thus they lay side by side with lips touching all night long until morning came and day dawned.  (407)

This description focuses upon the virginal quality of Perceval as a positive aspect.  The narrative thrust of the story is removed from the beauty of the woman and sexaulity of the scene.  It is instead placed on the virginal purity of Perceval.  The contrast between Chretien’s story and that of Eschenbach suggests to me a difference in intended audience.  I struggle to define this difference though, because both were poets writing for the literate noble classes. 

Does anyone else have any insight into these very different portrayals of sex and sexuality?  Does anyone want to argue they are actually very similar?