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2019 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

1. Introduction: Narcissus and the Wounded Self

Author : Nicholas Ealy

Published in: Narcissism and Selfhood in Medieval French Literature

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

This chapter presents narcissism and selfhood within the context of medieval French literature. Exploring Ovid’s myth of Narcissus, the dominant paradigm for selfhood in this literature, it examines the tale of how this boy, after falling in love with an image incapable of answering him, understands himself to be a subject doomed by frustrated longing, wounds himself and then dies. The construct of selfhood present within the medieval literature influenced by Ovid’s myth, relayed through discussions of Bernart de Ventadorn’s poetry and Guillaume de Lorris’s Romance of the Rose, bases itself upon the wound resulting from unrequited love for an image that undercuts the lover’s body. The wounded self therefore becomes the lens through which the literature this book treats is examined.

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next chapter Narcissus and Selfhood: The Lay of Narcissus

Bernart de Ventadorn, The Songs of Bernart de Ventadorn, ed. Stephen G. Nichols (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1965), vv. 9–16, 166–68.

Stephen G. Nichols refers to this song as having “define[d] lyric subjectivity for the troubadour canon.” See: “The Early Troubadours: Guilhem IX to Bernart de Ventadorn” in The Troubadours: An Introduction, ed. Simon Gaunt and Sarah Kay (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 68.Jean Frappier claims “il apparaît […] comme le principe […] d’une connaissance de soi” [it appears to aim for a knowledge of the self]. See: “Variations sur le thème du miroir, de Bernard de Ventadour à Maurice Scève,” Cahiers de l’Association Internationale des Etudes françaises 11 (1959), 154, my translation.

See: Richard Sorabji, Self: Ancient and Modern Insights About Individuality, Life, and Death (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 17–53.

Stephen G. Nichols, “The Old Provençal Lyric” in A New History of French Literature, ed. Dennis Hollier (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), 31–32.

For more on joven and mezura, see: Glynnis M. Cropp, Le Vocabulaire courtois des troubadours de l’époque Classique (Geneva: Droz, 1975), 413–25. For more on joi, see: Jean-Charles Huchet, L’Amour discourtois: la ‘fin’amors’ chez le premiers troubadours (Toulouse: Privat, 1987), 203–16.

Sarah Kay, “Desire and Subjectivity” in The Troubadours: An Introduction, ed. Simon Gaunt and Sarah Kay (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 221.

Bernart, Songs, vv. 17–24, 166–68, translation modified.

For a discussion on Narcissus in troubadour poetry, see: Marie-Noëlle Toury, Mort et fin’amor dans la poésie d’oc et d’oïl aux XIIe et XIIIe siècles (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2001), 283–95.

Ovid, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Books 1–5, ed. William S. Anderson (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), v. 3.348, 97.

Despite Echo’s importance here, she is almost systematically removed from medieval versions of the story. See: Christopher Lucken, “L’Echo du poème (‘ki sert de recorder che k’austres dist’)” in Par la vue et par l’ouïe (Littérature du Moyen Age et de la Renaissance) (Fontenay-aux-Roses: E.N.S. Editions, 1999), 25–58.

Ovid, Metamorphoses, vv. 3.418–24, 98; Ovid, The Metamorphoses of Ovid, trans. Allen Mandelbaum (New York: Hardcourt Brace, 1993), 94, translation modified.

Ibid., vv. 3.457–63, 99; Ibid., 95, translation modified.

Claire Nouvet, Enfances Narcisse (Paris: Galilée, 2009), 104. My translation of: “la confirmation d’une définition plutôt classique du sujet qui maintient une nette séparation entre l’ego et l’image.”; “Entendu à la lettre, ‘Iste ego sum’ confirme que l’erreur de Narcisse n’en est pas une: l’ego peut être confondu avec une imago parce qu’il est lui-même une imago. L”ego’ n’est que ceci, ‘iste’ […]. Il est originellement cet ‘autre’ dont il croit pouvoir se distinguer. Il est autre, car aliéné, et ceci dès l’origine, de ne se constituer qu’en absorbant l’autre’ qu’est l’image.” Nouvet translates “iste” as “ceci” or “this,” and this is the translation I will use throughout my study. “Iste,” as a masculine pronoun, can also mean “he,” rendering the alternate translation “I am he.”

Ovid, Metamorphoses, vv. 3.480–85, 100; Ovid, Metamorphoses, 96.

Ibid., vv. 3.488–89, 100; Ibid.

Giorgio Agamben, Stanzas: Word and Phantasm in Western Culture, trans. Ronald L. Martinez (Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press, 1993), 82.

Ibid., 82.

On the philosophical context for phantasms, see: Karine Descoings, “Fantasma d’amore: quand la bien-aimée vient hanter son poète (Antiquité et Renaissance),” Camenae 8 (2010).

Agamben, Stanzas, 81.

Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, Le Roman de la Rose, ed. Armand Strubel (Paris: Librairie Générale Française, 1992), vv. 1612–20, 128. English translations are mine.

Nouvet, Enfances, 144, my emphasis. Based on my translation of: “L’aimée apparaît à la place où le moi devrait apparaître parce qu’elle en tient lieu et en donne la glorieuse figure. […] On peut aimer dans l’autre l’image de soi, non tel que l’on est, mais tel que l’on désire être.”

Slavoj Žižek, The Metasteses of Enjoyment: On Women and Causality (London: Verso, 1994), 94.

Ibid.

Guillaume de Lorris, Rose, vv. 1870–77, 142.

For more on the connection between Love and the lover’s heart, see: Christopher Lucken, “L’imagination de la dame: fantasmes amoureux et poésie courtoise,” Micrologus 6 (1998).

Erin Felicia Labbie, Lacan’s Medievalism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006), 127.

Nouvet, Enfances, 131. My translation based upon: “Les blessures que Narcisse s’inflige ne font que littéraliser la blessure que la réflexion lui infligea. Le ‘je’ apparaît originellement blessé, amputé d’une identité à soi dont il n’a jamais joui.”

Larissa Tracy and Kelly DeVries, “Introduction: Penetrating Medieval Wounds” in Wounds and Wound Repair in Medieval Culture, ed. Larissa Tracy and Kelly DeVries (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 21.

Elaine Scarry, The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 15–16.

Labbie, Lacan’s Medievalism, 127.

Emmanuèle Baumgartner, “Narcisse à la fontaine: du ‘conte’ à ‘l’exemple’” in Cahiers de recherches médiévales 9 (2002), 131. For a discussion of how the myth, and Ovid’s Metamorphoses as a whole, had a more direct influence on Medieval French literature, see: Miranda Griffin, Transforming Tales: Rewriting Metamorphosis in Medieval French Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015).

Cropp discusses melancholy as a central element of troubadour lyric. See: Vocabulaire courtois, 275–316.

Wendy J. Turner and Christina Lee, “Conceptualizing Trauma for the Middle Ages” in Trauma in Medieval Society, ed. Wendy J. Turner and Christina Lee (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2018), 8.

René Descartes, Discourse on Method and Meditations of First Philosophy, trans. Donald A. Cress (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1998), 18.

Patrick Fuery, Theories of Desire (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1995), 11.

Sigmund Freud, “On Narcissism: An Introduction” in The Standard Edition of the Complete Works of Sigmund Freud, Vol. 14, trans. and ed. James Strachey (London: Hogarth, 1964), 76–77; Freud, The Ego and the Id , trans. Joan Riviere (New York: W. W. Norton, 1960), 3–10.

Jacques Lacan, “The Mirror Stage” in Ecrits (New York: W. W. Norton, 2006).

Simon Gaunt, Love and Death in Medieval French and Occitan Courtly Literature: Martyrs to Love (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 33.

Agamben, Giorgio. 1993. Stanzas: Word and Phantasm in Western Culture. Trans. Ronald L. Martinez. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minneapolis Press.

Baumgartner, Emmanuèle. 2002. Narcisse à la fontaine: du ‘conte’ à ‘l’exemple’. Cahiers de recherches médiévales 9: 131–141.

Bernart de Ventadorn. 1965. The Songs of Bernart de Ventadorn. Ed. Stephen G. Nichols. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.

Cropp, Glynnis M. 1975. Le Vocabulaire courtois des troubadours de l’époque classique. Geneva: Droz.

Descartes, René. 1998. Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy. Trans. Donald A. Cress. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.

Descoings, Karine. 2010. Fantasma d’amore: quand la bien-aimée vient hanter son poète (Antiquité et Renaissance). Camenae 8: 1–53.

Frappier, Jean. 1959. Variations sur le thème du miroir, de Bernard de Ventadour à Maurice Scève. Cahiers de l’Association internationale des études françaises 11: 134–158.CrossRef

Freud, Sigmund. 1960. The Ego and the Id. Trans. Joan Riviere. New York: W. W. Norton.

———. 1964. On Narcissism: An Introduction. In The Standard Edition of the Complete Works of Sigmund Freud, Vol. 14. Trans. and Ed. James Strachey, 73–102. London: Hogarth.

Fuery, Patrick. 1995. Theories of Desire. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.

Gaunt, Simon. 2006. Love and Death in Medieval French and Occitan Courtly Literature: Martyrs to Love. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRef

Griffin, Miranda. 2015. Transforming Tales: Rewriting Metamorphosis in Medieval French Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun. 1992. Le Roman de la Rose. Ed. Armand Strubel. Paris: Librairie Générale Française.

Huchet, Jean-Charles. 1987. L’amour discourtois: la ‘fin’amors’ chez les premiers troubadours. Toulouse: Privat.

Kay, Sarah. 1999. Desire and Subjectivity. In The Troubadours: An Introduction, ed. Simon Gaunt and Sarah Kay, 212–227. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRef

Labbie, Erin Felicia. 2006. Lacan’s Medievalism. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

Lacan, Jacques. 2006. The Mirror Stage. In Ecrits. Trans. Bruce Fink, 75–81. New York: W. W. Norton.

Lucken, Christopher. 1998. L’imagination de la dame: fantasmes amoureux et poésie courtoise. Micrologus 6: 201–223.

———. 1999. L’Echo du poème (‘ki sert de recorder che k’austres dist’). In Par la vue et par l’ouïe (Littérature du Moyen Age et de la Renaissance), ed. Michèle Gally and Michel Jourde, 25–58. Fontenay-aux-Roses: E.N.S. Editions.

Nichols, Stephen G. 1989. The Old Provençal Lyric. In A New History of French Literature, ed. Denis Hollier, 30–36. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

———. 1999. The Early Troubadours: Guilhem IX to Bernart de Ventadorn. In The Troubadours: An Introduction, ed. Simon Gaunt and Sarah Kay, 66–82. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRef

Nouvet, Claire. 2009. Enfances narcisse. Paris: Galilée.

Ovid. 1993. The Metamorphoses of Ovid. Trans. Allen Mandelbaum. New York: Harcourt Brace.

———. 1997. Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Books 1–5. Ed. William S. Anderson. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

Scarry, Elaine. 1985. The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World. New York: Oxford University Press.

Sorabji, Richard. 2006. Self: Ancient and Modern Insights about Individuality, Life, and Death. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRef

Toury, Marie-Noëlle. 2001. Mort et fin’amor dans la poésie d’oc et d’oïl aux XIIe et XIIIe siècles. Paris: Honoré Champion.

Tracy, Larissa and Kelly DeVries. 2015. Introduction: Penetrating Medieval Wounds. In Wounds and Wound Repair in Medieval Culture, ed. Larissa Tracy and Kelly DeVries, 1–21. Leiden: Brill.

Turner, Wendy J. and Christina Lee. 2018. Conceptualizing Trauma for the Middle Ages. In Trauma in Medieval Society, ed. Wendy J. Turner and Christina Lee, 3–12. Leiden: Brill.CrossRef

Žižek, Slavoj. 1994. The Metastases of Enjoyment: On Women and Causality. London: Verso.

Title: Introduction: Narcissus and the Wounded Self
Author: Nicholas Ealy
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Book: Narcissism and Selfhood in Medieval French Literature
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-27915-8

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-030-27916-5

Copyright Year: 2019
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27916-5_1