Marie De France\'s Laustic the Nightingale

Marie De France

Courtly Love, Holy Love: Lovers in a hostile world of oppressive marriages and social conventions use love as escape from oppressive material world and a way of accessing the divine in the secular sphere of feudal obligation and sexuality

According to the essay upon the "Rules of Courtly Love," an introduction to one of the Lais of Marie De France, the concept of courtly love often revolves around the image of an idealized image of a pure, untouchable young woman, usually married out of social obligation to an older lord, whom is idolized from afar by a younger, poorer, or less socially desirable man. The relationship between the married woman and the unmarried man is supposed to parallel the distanced yet intimate sensibility that exists between a human being and the divine, or more specifically within the medieval, Christian concept, between a Christian believer and the Virgin Mary. Mary is a uniquely accessible ear for all humankind because she can and will intervene upon behalf of humanity, appealing to God for mercy. Mary is integral to the holy trinity's ability to manifest itself on earth. All believers in Christ must respect her true nature and purity.

The marital status of the real, idealized woman in the courtly love scenario allows her to be sexualized in a way that the Virgin Mary is not -- although the Virgin was married, to Joseph. Yet the woman in the courtly love scenario is, also like Mary, able to remain chaste within the context of the story because the young man, usually a knight, whom desires her romantically and carnally, cannot infringe upon the bed of another man. Quite often the young man has a social obligation to the woman's husband, whom might be his lord or commander.

However, in Marie De France's "Laustic" or "The Nightingale" the longing, courtly relationship is not between humans. Rather, the plot revolves around the desire a young woman for a beautiful bird. The young woman's life is rendered spiritually meaningful from the sight of the animal. The young wife pines for the bird, arousing her husband's jealously much like the courtly relationships of love.

However, the woman's more active pursuit of the bird, albeit with her gaze rather than military prowess, paradoxically renders her more active than the typical heroine of the courtly love scenario and more like the young married man, whom often accomplishes feats in the name of his beloved, to prove his love.

Although the wife says to her husband, "anyone who hasn't heard the nightingale sing has not experienced joy in the world. That is why I go to stand at the window... So much delight does it give me and so intensely do I long to hear it, that I cannot close my eyes to sleep," the husband selfishly interprets her desire as disturbing to her sleep, and kills the bird.

Unlike the passive woman adored in the courtly love scenario, the wife of "The Nightingale" is active, yet also remains chaste because her adoration is symbolic for a beautiful, ethereal animal, rather than for an actual human being other than her boorish husband. The spiritual element of courtly love is thus highlighted in this scenario, as the desire for the bird parallels the woman's desire for a better, purer life than the one she currently inhabits -- a life that is outside of desire for men entirely.

Boccaccio's "Federigo's Falcon," in contrast, depicts a more conventional schema of sexual rivalry between the male protagonists. The woman of the tale weds another man. The rejected suitor's falcon becomes a symbol for the adoring man's pursuit of his female object of affection. However, rather than the holy nightingale, the falcon's nature is to pursue and track down his prey. Boccaccio's tale, like Marie de France's story of "The Nightingale" thus varies the themes of courtly love for the author's own intentions. However, by rendering a falcon the symbolic bird of the tale, the Italian author makes his story far more carnal, while Marie de France's explicit use of the nightingale as an object of longing makes the sexual elements of courtly love retreat to the background, and brings its spiritual elements to the forefront. Boccaccio is more inclined to view the desire of courtly love as sexual rather than as purely analogous to the human/divine relationship, acknowledging the elements of worldly and physical desire that remain ungratified within the conventional, social institutions of wedlock and marriage.