The Knight with the Lion
"The Knight with the Lion" is a medieval French story of the adventures of Sir Yvain. In the story Yvain falls in love with and marries a lady by the name of Luadine. By marrying her, Yvain becomes responsible for protecting Luadine's realm. Despite this duty, she grants him one year to travel throughout the country to participate in tournaments but Yvain forgets his promise to return. The knight goes mad with grief when he realizes he has lost the love and respect of Luadine and must work to earn back his honor in order to be accepted back. At one point in the story Yvain stumbles upon a spring which is known to belong to Luadine. The knowledge of what he has lost by breaking his promise causes Yvain to contemplate why he has not committed suicide. As he is overrun with his emotions he comes to find Lunete, a girl who had previously saved his life and helped secure his marriage to Luadine, has been imprisoned and sentenced to death. Although neither character ends up dying and the scene is confined to the clearing in the woods the prospect of suicide and the death penalty have a profound effect on the function of space in the story.
Purpose
The purpose of this project was to research and present an analysis of an episode from "The Knight and the Lion" with respect to space. After the episode was defined from Yvain's contemplation of suicide to the discovery of Lunete's imprisonment, there arose the question of how did medieval suicide and capital punishment function through space. The information gained from this research was then applied to an analysis of the story. A website genre was chosen to present this information for many reasons. The interactive aspect of the website makes the information engaging for the user as compared to a single block of text. The website also allows for the inclusion of pictures and videos which can help clarify some of the ideas expressed. Since the seclusion in the woods was such a major aspect of the episode, the website’s theme and colors were chosen to reflect a darker side of nature. The picture that heads each page is of a dense forest but the coloring of the picture has been manipulated to appear almost grey. The green and grey color combination represents the complex relationship suicide and the death penalty have with both life and death. Below are a list of references for all information and pictures found on this site.
References
"The Knight with the Lion" is a medieval French story of the adventures of Sir Yvain. In the story Yvain falls in love with and marries a lady by the name of Luadine. By marrying her, Yvain becomes responsible for protecting Luadine's realm. Despite this duty, she grants him one year to travel throughout the country to participate in tournaments but Yvain forgets his promise to return. The knight goes mad with grief when he realizes he has lost the love and respect of Luadine and must work to earn back his honor in order to be accepted back. At one point in the story Yvain stumbles upon a spring which is known to belong to Luadine. The knowledge of what he has lost by breaking his promise causes Yvain to contemplate why he has not committed suicide. As he is overrun with his emotions he comes to find Lunete, a girl who had previously saved his life and helped secure his marriage to Luadine, has been imprisoned and sentenced to death. Although neither character ends up dying and the scene is confined to the clearing in the woods the prospect of suicide and the death penalty have a profound effect on the function of space in the story.
Purpose
The purpose of this project was to research and present an analysis of an episode from "The Knight and the Lion" with respect to space. After the episode was defined from Yvain's contemplation of suicide to the discovery of Lunete's imprisonment, there arose the question of how did medieval suicide and capital punishment function through space. The information gained from this research was then applied to an analysis of the story. A website genre was chosen to present this information for many reasons. The interactive aspect of the website makes the information engaging for the user as compared to a single block of text. The website also allows for the inclusion of pictures and videos which can help clarify some of the ideas expressed. Since the seclusion in the woods was such a major aspect of the episode, the website’s theme and colors were chosen to reflect a darker side of nature. The picture that heads each page is of a dense forest but the coloring of the picture has been manipulated to appear almost grey. The green and grey color combination represents the complex relationship suicide and the death penalty have with both life and death. Below are a list of references for all information and pictures found on this site.
References
- Center, Baton Rouge Crisis Intervention. The History of Suicide. 2011. Website. 10 November 2014. <http://crouchfoundation.org/history-of-suicide.html>.
- Noon, Georgia. "On Suicide." Journal of the History of Ideas 39.3 (1978): 371-386. JSTOR. 10 November 2014.
- Realino Marra, Marco Orrù. "Social Images of Suicide." The British Journal of Sociology 42.2 (1991): 273-288. JSTOR. 10 November 2014.
- Reggio, Michael H. History of the Death Penalty. n.d. Website. 10 November 2014. <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/execution/readings/history.html>.