All She Resolves to Rescue - Marie de France's 'Lanval' and 'Guildeluec and Guilliadon' (a Romance Known As 'Eliduc') - Modern English Translations
Description:... The title 'All She Resolves to Rescue' has two senses. On one level, the female heroes in these texts discern all that needs to be rescued. On another level, the rescues affect all, connecting disparate worlds surrounding them. Here, a sprite-like Lady can tell the Knight Lanval that she could never appear visible before him again if he let anyone know of their affection, but when her existence and her actual presence are the only things that can rescue him from the Court's corruption, she rides openly through the city, having decided to speak unconcealed before Lanval and the Court. In a similar way, with similar emancipatory energy, Guildeluec - the wife of the titular Knight Eliduc - can decide to revive the Lady whom Eliduc loves, who was hidden to her until that day. This action reveals the two women to one another and links two societies and ontological universes that the Knight has keep closely compartmentalised. Within these works, the female hero, deliberation and rescue are catalysts that connect powerful worlds kept secret from each other - at once protecting all from harm and causing narrative truth to be uncovered.Considered the earliest female French poet, Marie de France based her late 12th century Lais on traditional Breton Lais, and she recounts the romances speaking as a storyteller commenting within the text.This volume presents both works in Quemar Press' new Modern English translation, juxtaposed with the original texts.In these texts, rescue is something that happens counter to societal expectations. The ethereal Lady breaks the convention that a stated rule is true when she chooses to save Lanval, after telling him the edict that he may not see her any longer. In comparison, Guildeluec surpasses societal concepts such as roles in relationships and rivalry when she decides to revive Guilliadon - her husband's lover - in honest affection and grief for her. In these works, the female hero's agency brings the narrative to benign resolution, one in which rescued can live with rescuer, and in which distant fragmented worlds connect by means of that same emancipatory energy.
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