Key Elements of Chivalry Novels: Honor, Love, and Adventure
Key Elements of Chivalry Novels
- Idealization of the knight’s love for his lady: Courtly love, service to the lady, idolatry, masochistic love outside marriage with illegitimate children, but they often end up marrying.
- Glorified violence: Personal value gained by feats of arms, fighting to achieve individual fame. Higher value implies higher morality, except against giants (considered superb). Tournaments, ordeals, duels, battles with monsters and giants. As a counterpoint, masochistic loving.
- Extraordinary birth of the hero: The illegitimate son of noble parents, often kings, must be a hero worthy of fame. His name often has magical significance. He wields a magical sword or possesses other superhuman powers and enjoys the help of a wizard or witch doctor friend.
- Christian ideal of a Holy War against the Turks: Crusade to defend Constantinople (actually lost in 1453). Nostalgic evocation of the Reconquista (completed in 1492).
- Totally fantastic geography: Journeys to new lands, monsters like Endriago, giants, strange rituals of pagan peoples. Delighted that boats can sail long distances in one hour, magical palaces, enchanted lakes, mysterious forests.
- Remote, mythical historical times, without historical references to contemporary social conditions.
- Topic of the false translation: Books are presented as originally written in Greek, German, English, Tuscan, Arabic, or other languages, or as a “manuscript found” after being long hidden or buried.
The First Chivalry Novel
The chivalry novel was born in Europe in the eleventh century. Primitive knightly values include the enhancement of women, the worship of a supreme being, the belief in spirits, magic, incantations, predictions, and, above all, the warrior spirit of noble sentiments, whose objective is to extol the brave.
It led to the order of knighthood itself, created to defend the state, religion, the cause, the defense of women, and the weak.
Chivalry comes from the French epic songs and legends derived from them. His heroes, historical or legendary, represented, among other values, loyalty, honor, and love.
They are found in France, Germany, the Nordic countries, Italy, and later, Spain (15th and 16th centuries).
Features
Its key features are:
- First-grade fiction: Facts matter more than the characters, which tend to be archetypal and plans. They are brought in and taken out of the action without changing or transforming, and too regardless of the psychology of the characters.
- Open structure: Endless adventures, endless possible continuations, the need for hyperbole or exaggeration, amplification (each generation has to overcome the deeds, feats of arms, or fame of his father). Heroes do not die; there is always a way open for a new output. Total lack of geographical probability and logic. Lengthy books, intertwined adventures.
- Search for honor, courage, and adventure through various tests: It is an episodic structure in which the hero goes through various tests (for example, the passage of “Arc of the faithful lovers” in the Amadis) to earn his lady, disenchant a palace, or get any honor reserved for the best knight of his time. Almost always, the main reason for the knight is fame and love.