{"title":"Erec et Enide and the Concept of Consent","authors":"Charles Samuelson","doi":"10.1215/00358118-9812464","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"\n Chrétien de Troyes’s Erec et Enide is about a husband’s appalling and disturbing mistreatment of his wife. Yet, this article contends, it can also be understood as a (perhaps surprisingly) critical reflection on sexual consent, which overlaps with key concerns of both medieval canon law and modern consent theory. In dialogue with each of these domains, this essay studies, first, how particular episodes not only call attention to the importance of sexual consent but also to factors that mitigate it—as well as to the more general limitations of the concept. Second, the article explores how the larger adventure series, which makes up the core of the romance, is persistently engaging with some of the knottiest issues in both medieval and modern thinking on sexual consent, such as its relation to equality, silence, volition, and the active/passive binary. Finally, the article reflects on the implications of considering this courtly romance alongside modern consent theory. On the one hand, modern theory pushes the medievalist to confront what is at stake in deeming Enide unable meaningfully to consent to the terms of her union with Erec. On the other, this medieval romance responds with crucial insights on, in particular, the history of the relationship between patriarchy and the concept of sexual consent.","PeriodicalId":39614,"journal":{"name":"Romanic Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2000,"publicationDate":"2022-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Romanic Review","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1215/00358118-9812464","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LITERATURE, ROMANCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
Chrétien de Troyes’s Erec et Enide is about a husband’s appalling and disturbing mistreatment of his wife. Yet, this article contends, it can also be understood as a (perhaps surprisingly) critical reflection on sexual consent, which overlaps with key concerns of both medieval canon law and modern consent theory. In dialogue with each of these domains, this essay studies, first, how particular episodes not only call attention to the importance of sexual consent but also to factors that mitigate it—as well as to the more general limitations of the concept. Second, the article explores how the larger adventure series, which makes up the core of the romance, is persistently engaging with some of the knottiest issues in both medieval and modern thinking on sexual consent, such as its relation to equality, silence, volition, and the active/passive binary. Finally, the article reflects on the implications of considering this courtly romance alongside modern consent theory. On the one hand, modern theory pushes the medievalist to confront what is at stake in deeming Enide unable meaningfully to consent to the terms of her union with Erec. On the other, this medieval romance responds with crucial insights on, in particular, the history of the relationship between patriarchy and the concept of sexual consent.
chrimtien de Troyes的《Erec et Enide》讲述了一个丈夫对妻子骇人听闻、令人不安的虐待。然而,本文认为,它也可以被理解为(也许令人惊讶的)对性同意的批判性反思,这与中世纪教会法和现代同意理论的关键问题重叠。在与这些领域的对话中,本文首先研究了特定事件如何不仅引起人们对性同意的重要性的关注,而且还引起人们对减轻性同意的因素的关注,以及这个概念的更普遍的局限性。其次,本文探讨了构成浪漫故事核心的大冒险系列是如何持续地涉及中世纪和现代关于性同意的一些最棘手的问题的,比如它与平等、沉默、意志和主动/被动二元的关系。最后,文章反映了考虑这种宫廷浪漫与现代同意理论的含义。一方面,现代理论促使中世纪主义者去面对什么是危险的,认为恩德德无法有意义地同意她与埃里克的结合条件。另一方面,这部中世纪的浪漫小说对父权制和性同意概念之间关系的历史有着重要的见解。
Romanic ReviewArts and Humanities-Arts and Humanities (all)
CiteScore
0.20
自引率
0.00%
发文量
23
期刊介绍:
The Romanic Review is a journal devoted to the study of Romance literatures.Founded by Henry Alfred Todd in 1910, it is published by the Department of French and Romance Philology of Columbia University in cooperation with the Departments of Spanish and Italian. The journal is published four times a year (January, March, May, November) and balances special thematic issues and regular unsolicited issues. It covers all periods of French, Italian and Spanish-language literature, and welcomes a broad diversity of critical approaches.