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Galahad Parts from His Bride, Blanchefleur by Edwin Austin Abbey

Blanchefleur ("white flower", also Blancheflor, Blanziflor, Flanziflor, Welsh: Blodyngwyn) is the name of a number of characters in literature of the High Middle Ages.

Characters

Characters with the name include:

Name and meaning

The name, in Floris and Blanchefleur, is a reference to Easter Sunday: both Floris and Blanchefleur are born on that day, named Paskes Flourie (or "flowering Easter") and associated with the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. As Denyse Delcourt argues, "Almost identical twins, the young heroes are like two flowers folded into one, the name of Blanchefleur containing that Floire", and Delcourt notes that "the flower imagery [occurring over fifty times in the romance] is the principal paradigm of the power of love to constantly renew itself".[4] As Peter Haidu notes in an article in Yale French Studies, "Blancheflor" is a "kind of stuttering repetition of identity", "white" and "flower" both denoting purity. This verbal play is underscored in Floris and Blanchefleur by Floris's hiding in a basket of flowers in order to visit Blanchefleur secretly--the basket is delivered to the wrong room, that of the minor character Claris, who pulls Blanchefleur into her room and invites her to look at a flower in the basket, combining (according to Haidu) allegory, metonymy, and metaphor.[5]

Presentation in romance

Blanchefleurs occurring in romance often present stereotypical images of idealized beauty, and according to Geraldine Barnes, the Blanchefleurs in Floris and Blanchefleur and Le Roman de Perceval are interchangeable, both texts offering "a lengthy and static portrait of perfection, proceeding from head to toe with strictly ordered reference to her blonde hair, high white forehead, "grey" eyes, exquisite nose, lips, teeth, and so forth". In the Norse Flóres saga ok Blankiflúr, which takes a decidedly hagiographic turn, according to Barnes, that description is missing.[3]

Blanchefleur in the Grail

In Chrétien de Troyes' (unfinished) Perceval, the Story of the Grail, Blanchefleur lives near the castle of Gornemant de Goort (and is related to him;[9] she is perhaps his granddaughter[10]), where a young Perceval is educated in knightly skills, and is knighted. He is asked by Blanchefleur, who visits him at night, to help her against her enemies, and he agrees. They spend the night together, and she initiates him sexually.[7] In the continuations of the Grail story, she comes to play different roles. In the second continuation (by Wauchier de Denain), she continues to act the part of a sexually attractive woman as commonly found in romance, and she and Perceval are likely to end up getting married, according to Lori Walters; the third (by Manessier) takes a more religious turn and, introducing elements from hagiography, abandons that romantic involvement.[11]

See also

References

  1. ^ Vowles, Guy R. "Review: Medieval Days". South Atlantic Bulletin. 10 (2): 6–7.
  2. ^ Lancaster, Charles Maxwell; Frank, John G. (1948). "A Chord from Gottfried's Ancient Rote". The Modern Language Journal. 32 (2): 112–124.
  3. ^ a b Barnes, Geraldine (1977). "Some Observations on Flóres Saga ok Blankiflú". Scandinavian Studies. 49 (1): 48–66.
  4. ^ a b Delcourt, Denyse (2012). "Swords and Flowers: Conversion in La Chanson de Roland and Floire et Blanchefleur". Modern Language Notes. 127 (5): S34–S53.
  5. ^ a b Haidu, Peter (1974). "Narrativity and Language in Some XIIth Century Romances". Yale French Studies. 51: 133–146.
  6. ^ "Garin le Loherain" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 11 (11th ed.). 1911. pp. 467–468.
  7. ^ a b Markale, Jean (1999). The Grail: The Celtic Origins of the Sacred Icon. Inner Traditions / Bear & Co. pp. 8–10. ISBN 9780892817146.
  8. ^ Green, Richard Firth (2023). "The Ballad and the Middle Ages (abridged)". In Crocker, Holly; Smith, D. Vance (eds.). Medieval Literature: Criticism and Debates. Taylor & Francis. p. 54. ISBN 9781000948264.
  9. ^ Busby, Keith (1987). "The Characters and the Setting". In Lacy, Norris J.; Kelly, Douglas; Busby, Keith (eds.). The Legacy of Chrétien de Troyes: Chrétien et ses contemporains. The Legacy of Chrétien de Troyes. Vol. 1. Rodopi. pp. 57–90. ISBN 9789062037384.
  10. ^ Pickens, Rupert T. (2014). Perceval and Gawain in Dark Mirrors: Reflection and Reflexivity in Chretien de Troyes's Conte del Graal. McFarland. p. 51. ISBN 9781476618593.
  11. ^ Walters, Lori (1993). "The Image of Blanchefleur in MS Montpellier, BI, Sect Méd. H 249". In Busby, Keith (ed.). Les Manuscrits de Chrétien de Troyes. Vol. 1. Rodopi. pp. 437–456. ISBN 9789051835939.
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