WOMAN-HATING IN MARIE DE FRANCE'S BISCLAVRET1

Romanic Review, May 2002 by Creamer, Paul

Love is never easy for Marie de France's protagonists. All twelve of her lays feature a man and a woman in troubled love, and these amorous pairs are strained or destroyed by one or more of the following intrusive ele-ments: a lie, a deception, or an omission2; physical separation, either geo-graphic or architectural3; or the neglect of a magical substance.4 In each text, the suffering of the couple yields reflection on how males and females com-port themselves when entranced by love and faced with its obstacles. Bisclavret is unique among Marie's lays because it is the only one of the twelve that con-cerns itself with a couple falling out of love (Menard 101, Bruckner 258). Scholarship on this text has traditionally focused on one of four areas: the et-ymology of the term bisdavret; Marie's appropriation of the werewolf topos; the human/werewolf duality of the baron; or the slow shift of the mantle of villainy away from the werewolf and onto the baron's wife.5 Missing, how-ever, from previous research has been a comprehensive analysis of the insidi-ous woman-hating universe Marie creates in the text. The purpose of the pres-ent study is to demonstrate how the poet, in progressive and incremental ways, builds the wife into a contemptible traitor, a loathsome violator of the insti-tution of marriage who is deserving of her punishment. This rereading sug-gests that the lycanthropic theme of the lay is merely a catalyst for launching a scalding indictment of women who do not respect their husbands. This study begins by comparing how Marie constructs and then modifies her representa-tions of the werewolf, the baron, and his wife; moves to an examination of how the interplay between these characters tilts the lay's shifting table of al-liances; and concludes by assessing the text's misogynistic denouement. For the purpose of clarity, the main character will be referred to as the werewolf when in a lupine state in the lay and as the baron when in human form.

Initial Portraits of the Werewolf, the Male, and the Female

Bisdavret runs a total of 318 verses, but Marie furnishes a capsule descrip-tion of the three types of beings the lay examines-werewolf, man, and woman-in the text's first 22 lines. These portraits are rendered in the fol-lowing order: that of the werewolf, a creature presented initially as a general-ized type, in a ten-verse description; that of the male, represented by the baron, in six verses; and that of the female, represented by his wife, in just two verses. These verbal sketches, paraded in front of the reader6 before the action of the text begins, provide Marie with three pliable forms that she will subsequently remold as the lay progresses. The text begins with the narrator's announce-ment of the importance of preserving the story: "Quant des lais faire m'en-tremet/ne vueil ublier Bisclavret" (1-2: When I take on the task of writing lais, I don't want to forget Bisclavret),7 and proceeds immediately to a sober, encyclopedia-entry-like presentation of the werewolf:

Bisclavret a nun en Bretan,

Garulf 1'apelent Ii Norman.

Jadis le pceit hum oir

e sovent suleit avenir,

hume plusur garulf devindrent

e es boscages maisun tindrent.

Garulf, ceo est beste salvage;

tant cum il est en cele; rage,

humes devure, grant mal fait,

es granz forez converse e vait. (3-12)

(In Breton the name is bisclavret, while the Normans say garulf. In earlier times it was often said, and it often transpired, that many men became werewolves and lived in the woods. A werewolf is a savage beast: so long as it is in this rage, it devours humans and does great evil, dwelling in and moving about deep forests.)

This is a zoological portrait whose elements can be ticked off like a checklist: it specifies the name of the animal in two languages (3-4); the frequency (6) and extent (7) of its presence; and the locus of its activity (8, 12). The deadli-ness of the werewolf is highlighted: "humes devure, grant mal fait" (11: it de-vours humans and does great evil). These ten verses give a damning portrait of what is literally designated a "beste salvage" (9: savage beast).

But Marie then engineers a shift, as the narrator8 brusquely cuts off the de-scription: "Cest afaire les ore ester; /del Bisclavret vus vueil cunter" (13-14:1 will cease discussing this matter now. I want to tell you about Bisclavret). Never again will the narrator speak of werewolves in a general sense, but only of a single derivative from the genus, the specific and peculiar bisclavret who lurks within this lay. This shift marks the beginning of a continuous refor-matting process that Marie executes with regard to werewolves, the baron, and the baron's wife.9 There will be no murderous werewolf in the lay, and in fact there will be only two acts of evil in the whole work, one committed by the text's only woman, and one committed on her.

The narrator then passes directly to the humans, starting with the baron:

En Bretaigne maneit uns her,

merveille l'ai oir loer.

Beals chevaliers e bons esteit