Love and Adventure: Chivalric Emphasis in “Lanval” and “Sir Launfal”

The Breton Lai is a short, episodic poem that was typically intended to be accompanied by music. Lais are generally considered by critics to be a sub-genre of the romance, their content dealing most often with the romanticized ideals of courtly love, the supernatural or the world of the fae, and knighthood or chivalry. Marie de France’s “Lanval” was written during the twelfth century and Thomas Chestre’s “Sir Launfal” was written in the fourteenth century. Both are considered Breton Lai’s because of their length and content. According to William Stokoe in his article “The Sources of Sir Launfal,” the origins of Chestre’s story are both Marie’s lai and another anonymous lai titled “Graelent” (392). However, despite Marie being the source for Chestre’s piece, the two works have different focuses in terms of chivalry. Marie focuses most on love and loyalty whereas Chestre focuses on bravery in battle, prowess, and generosity, though both the themes mostly through the characters of Lanval and Sir Launfal. My argument is that even though these stories are essentially the same in plot, what shaped the chivalric emphasis was their respective historical and social constructs.

Lost in Adaptation: Presence of Illusion and Reality in the 1966 Film Adaptation of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

In many ways drama is the most similar medium to film: both use actors in dramatic situations and take advantage of visual and verbal composition to portray themes and meaning. In Edward Albee’s play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? there are very few stage directions especially in terms of setting: there are stairs, a bar, a front door leading into the living room, and even wind chimes that hang near the door, but all of the action takes place in one room: the living room. However, in Mike Nichols’ 1966 film adaptation of the play, the camera follows characters in the house (in the closet, kitchen, and bedroom), around the house (in the yard, on the porch, through the college campus), and even on a car ride to a desolate roadhouse. Desmond and Hawkes state in their book Adaptation: Studying Film & Literature, “film audiences expect realism, stage audiences will accept artificial sets and illusion” (162). It is clear that Nichols and his production team had this thought in mind while filming Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? because through the changes in setting and character in an attempt to make it more realistic, the film loses the play’s absurdist qualities that exist to enhance the conflict of reality and illusion. I am defining reality as what is verifiable fact and illusion as false creation of the mind.

“Ice and silence”: Motherhood in Anaïs Nin’s “Birth”

The short fiction piece “Birth” by Anaïs Nin can be found in a larger collection of her works titled Under a Glass Bell. However, the story can also be found, practically word for word, in Nin’s book Incest: From “A Journal of Love” - The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin. This is because it is a true story, so technically the piece should be considered creative nonfiction. In the introduction to Nin in the Norton Anthology of Literature by Women, it states that Nin intended to “capture the living moments of her emotional reactions to experience” (588), and she is more than successful in doing so within this short piece through both language and imagery.  I want to analyze the historical influences on Nin as a woman living in 1930’s France and how, by utilizing the contrasting images of both fire and ice throughout the story, Nin has successfully captured the contradictory emotions of a woman who both loves and hates the thing she has created.