Sexuality And Colonialism In Marie De France's Lais

Marie De France’s Lanval is one of the two Arthurian stories in her collection of Lais. Lanval is a work of a courtly romance and deals with issues of both sexuality and colonialism. More specifically, the text illustrates how women’s sexualities are treated differently in direct relation to their status within colonialism. I will argue that because Guenevere is English, her defiance is not addressed in this text because of the underlying proto-nationalist themes present in Marie’s imagining of Arthur and England as inherently deserving of ruling over Scotland. Lanval encounters both the Mysterious Woman of the borderland between Carlisle and Scotland, as well as Arthur’s wife Queen Guenevere, and throughout Lanval’s interactions with the two women, both women are assertive in their power and apparent agency in terms of their sexuality. This idea of female power and sexuality being apparent …show more content…
Whereas Guenevere who also displays assertive sexual traits, remains unpunished in this text as she continues to be a part of the Arthurian court. Guenevere’s actions, much like the Mysterious Woman’s are in direct opposition to the male relationships in the text, but as the text is primarily interested in issues of colonialism, the fallout of Guenevere’s actions are not addressed. Within Marie De France’s Lanval, the knight Lanval’s interactions with both Guenevere and the Mysterious Woman from the borderland are sexual in nature, with both women exerting their dominance over Lanval. The Mysterious Woman of the borderland is introduced in Lanval with comparisons to famously sexually deviant women of the past. The Mysterious Woman’s tent is described as “not Queen Semiramis, / when she had her greatest power and greatest wisdom, / nor the emperor Octavian /