‘Her Quen Awede Wold’: Female’s Polyphonic Voices and Madness in Sir Orfeo

• Main Authors: Hsing-wen Tsai, 蔡幸紋
• Other Authors: Denise Ming-yueh Wang
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2010
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/36959233291958615307

碩士 === 國立中正大學 === 外國文學所 === 98 === Sir Orfeo is a medieval adaptation of the Greco-Roman Orpheus myth well-known in the medieval West. The myth can be found in Virgil’s Georgics, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Boethius’ De Consolatione Philosophiae and Fulgentius’s Mythologies. The Classical Orpheus legend ends in tragedy, in which Orpheus fails to bring back his wife and thus loses his beloved Eurydice eternally. The medieval Breton lay, Sir Orfeo, however, transforms its ending from a tragedy to a “comedy” (with a happy ending), in which Orfeo triumphantly takes Heurodis back to his kingdom and they live happily ever after. More interestingly yet oddly, in their happy marriage, Orfeo and Heurodis produce no heir, after Orfeo’s reign, the loyal steward becomes the king. Much of recent Orfeo scholarship seems to fail to do justice to the poem’s cultural poetics because most studies explain away the pervading female Pathos, somatic gestures and personal relationship in favor of allegorical interpretations. This thesis attempts to shed new light on the Orfeo-Poet’s representation of Pathos by looking closely at the issues of female voices, body and sexuality and exploring their vital connection in late medieval times. In light of Hélène Cixous’ concept of écriture feminine and Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of heteroglossia, it aims to historicize and contextualize the text in the late medieval England so as to better understand the poem’s cultural implications by reconsidering the two central issues: Heurodis’ seeming madness and her barren womb. The thesis concludes that Queen Heurodis’ reweful cri, self-mutilation and emotional expressions inscribe feminine language, pathos, vis-à-vis masculine language, logos. Heurodis’ voices are therefore equivocal, polyphonic, and ever-in-the-making.