Per una didattica della letteratura europeaAccademia Nazionale dei Lincei, February 6 2017

Anatole Pierre FuksasUniversità degli Studi di Cassino

All the Truth on Emotions And How to Find Them

in the Romances of Chrétien de Troyes

(and Elsewhere)

Researching Literary Emotionsin Europe during the last decade

Round Table on «How to study Arthurian Emotions?», XXIIIrd Triennial Congress of the International Arthurian Society, University of Bristol, Centre for Medieval Studies, July 28 2011.

«Inspiring Experiments on Literature and Empathy II», Workshop on «L’emozione ha voce - Learning from literature. An Italian-German Conference», Villa Vigoni, January 22 2013.

(con Gioia Paradisi) «La joie amoureuse dans le Tristan de Béroul et le Chevalier de la Charrette de Chrétien de Troyes», XXIV Congress of the International Arthurian Society, Bucarest, thematic Section on Positive Arthurian Emotions july 26 2014.

«The Description of Emotions in the Romances of Chrétien de Troyes and Gender Stereotypes», XXVIII Congresso Internazionale di Linguistica e Filologia Romanza, La Sapienza, Università degli Roma, 19 luglio 2016.

«La vérité du roman et l’authenticité du sentiment amoureux d’après le prologue du Chevalier au Lion de Chrétien de Troyes», Colloque intitulé «Entre le cœur et le diaphragme. (D)écrire les émotions dans la littérature narrative et scientifique du Moyen Âge», Université Catholique de Louvain, le 8 décembre 2016.

«Amor et crieme dans Cligès de Chrétien de Troyes, le recueil de sentences de Publilius Sirus et une épitre ad Lucilium», Colloque de la Société de Langues et Littératures Médiévales d’Oc et d’Oïl (SLLMOO) sur Les émotions au Moyen Âge : un objet littéraire», Université de Rouen, le 13 janvier 2017.

The “Realism” of the Romanceand the Truth on/of Emotions

Apres mangier, parmi ces sales�Li chevalier s' atropelerentLa ou dames les apelerentOu dameiseles ou puceles.Li un recontoient noveles,Li autre parloient d' Amors,Des angoisses et des dolorsEt des granz biens qu'orent sovantLi deciple de son covant,Qui lors estoit mout dolz et buens.Mes or i a mout po des suensQu'a bien pres l'ont ja tuit lessiee,S'an est Amors mout abessiee,Car cil qui soloient amerSe feisoient cortois clamerEt preu et large et enorable.Or est Amors tornee a fable Por ce que cil qui rien n'en santent Dïent qu'il aiment, mes il mantent, Et cil fable et mançonge an font Qui s'an vantent et droit n'i ont

Chrétien de Troyes, Yvain ou le Chevalier au lion, a c. di Ph. Walter, in Oeuvres completes, éd par D. Poirion, A. Berthelot, P.F. Dembowski, S. Lefèvre et al., Gallimard, Paris, 1994, p. 339.

Chrétien de Troyes, Le Chevalier de la Charrette (Lancelot), éd. par A. Foulet, K. U. Uitti, Paris, Bordas, 1989, p. 264.

Chrétien de TroyesChevalier au Lion, vv. 8-28

Tant li est ses jeus dolz et buens Et del beisier et del santir Que il lor avint sanz mantir Une joie et une mervoilleTel c’onques encor sa paroille Ne fu oïe ne seüe; Mes toz jorz iert par moi teüe, Qu’an conte ne doit estre dite

Chrétien de TroyesChevalier de la Charrette, vv. 4692-4699

N’onques plus conter n'en oï Ne ja plus n'en orroiz conter S’an n’i vialt mançonge ajoster

Chrétien de TroyesChevalier au Lion, vv. 6818-6820

Emotions, Decisions and Actions

Human actions are understood as purposeful and intentional because they rely on an emotional appraisal of the environmental circumstances they respond to [1, 2]. Indeed, actions can not be addressed as purposeful and intentional if their emotional fueling is lacking or unclear. Consequently, the intelligence of a text requires readers to recognize and properly process emotional correlates of a described sensory experience and/or the interceptive modulations [3] which necessarily underlay the planning of purposeful actions [4, 5, 6].

1) A. Damasio, Looking for Spinoza. Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain, Orlando (FL), Harcourt, 2003.

2) J. E. Ledoux, The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life (New York 1998).

3) A. D. Craig, “How do you feel? Interoception: the sense of the physiological condition of the body”, Nature Review Neuroscience 3 (2002), 655-666.

4) A. M. Glenberg, D. A. Havas, R. Becker and M. Rinck, “Grounding language in bodily states: The case for emotion”, The grounding of cognition: The role of perception and action in memory, language, and thinking, eds. R. Zwaan and D. Pecher (Cambridge 2005), 115-128.

5) A. M. Glenberg, B J. Webster, E. Mouilso, D. Havas and L. M. Lindeman, “Gender, Emotion, and the Embodiment of Language Comprehension”, Emotion Review 1 (2009), 151-161, 151.

6) A. Havas, A. M. Glenberg and M. Rinck, “Emotion simulation during language comprehension”, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 14 (2007), 436-441, 436.

The Emergent NetworkIf the scope is to investigate the descriptions of affective states in literary text, we need proof that the words we are focusing on actually describe emotions. Our approach is based both on vocabulary and context. In other words, so as to demonstrate that some words we find in literary texts, namely the verse romances written by Chrétien de Troyes, are proper “emotion words”, we process a lexical network based on co-occurring words which, according to vocabularies, are more likely to describe human affective states.For instance, we assume that the word peor/poor, mostly referring to proper “fear”, as the cornerstone of a semantic network which includes all relevant words co-occurring with that one [1]. Various degrees of syntactic proximity, such as connections based on boolean operators or co-occurrence in same sentence/phrase, will be considered as an index of semantic proximity. The system progressively includes all relevant words co-occurring with those which have been previously deemed relevant.1) J. E. Ledoux, “ The Emotional Brain, Fear and the Amigdala”, Cellular and Molecular Neurobiology 23, 4-5 (2003), 727-738.

Fear, Rage and Trembling

Chevalier de la Charrette vv. 2732-2739

Li chevaliers de la charreteDe malvestié se blasme et rete Quant son oste voit qui l'esgarde; Et des autres se reprant garde Qui l'esgardoient tuit ansanble. D'ire trestoz li cors li tranble, Qu'il deüst, ce li est avis,Avoir molt grant pieç'a conquis Celui qui a lui se conbat.

. 

Chrétien de Troyes, Le chevalier de la Charrette, cit., pp. 154 and 172.

vv. 3046-3054

Ce fesoit molt desconforterLes deus chevaliers qui estoient Avoec le tierz, que il cuidoient Que dui lÿon ou dui liepartAu chief del pont de l'autre part Fussent lïé a un perron.L'eve e li ponz et li lÿonLes metent an itel freorQu'il tranblent andui de peor.

Protagonists, Mirror Characters, Somatic Markers

The verb trambler doesn’t occur elsewhere throughout the romance. Hence, it just describes the mentioned pair of somatic responses to ire and peor. Ire causing Lancelot to tremble indicates an emotional state which directly targets the body of the protagonist, prompting him to action. Peor freezing the young companions of the hero targets a pair of «mirror characters» whose emotional response to specific circumstances likely aims at enticing the audience to react accordingly.

C. Larrington, “The psychology of emotion and study of the medieval period”, Early Medieval Europe 10 (2001), 251–256, 254.

F. Brandsma, “Mirror characters”, in Courtly Arts and the Art of Courtliness, ed. K. Busby and C. Kleinhenz (Woodbridge 2006) 275-284.

F. Brandsma, “Arthurian Emotions”, Actes du 22e Congres de la Société Internationale Arthurienne (Rennes 2008), http://www.uhb.fr/alc/ias/actes/index.htm, 15 juillet, session 2 L2: Conte di Graal et émotions.

The DatabaseSince verb trambler makes it possible to bridge peor and ire, we start describing all occurrences of these nouns. We will do the same with all co-occurring emotion-words which we find, until all relevant lexical entries will be collected indexed.

Tabling EmotionsCo-occurring words are ranged in strings; each line indicates the specific contexts in which they appear.

Graphing EmotionsGraphic processing of the table visualizes the discussed part of the lexical network. Red lines indicate descriptions of emotional states which include somatic markers.

Tagging Emotions Chevalier de la Charrette vv. 3920-3941

@Lancelot tuit beneïssoient:Et ce pöez vos bien savoirQue lors i dut grant #joie avoir,Et si ot il sanz nule dote.@La_genz_estrange asanble tote,Que de @Lancelot font grant #joie,Et dïent tuit por ce qu'il l'oie:«Sire, voir, molt nos #esjoïsmesTantost con nomer vos oïsmes,Que seür fumes a delivreC'or serions nos tuit delivre.»A cele #joie ot molt grant presseQue chascuns se #painne et #angresseComant il puisse a lui tochier.Cil qui plus s'an puet aprochierAn fu plus #liez que ne pot dire.Assez ot la et #joie et #ire,Que cil qui sont desprisonéSont tuit a #joie abandoné;Mes @Meliaganz et @lisuenN'ont nule chose de lor #buen,Einz sont #pansif et #mat et #morne.

A twitter-like hashtag/mention tagging system (# and @) might

facilitate the processing of specific sub-systems emerging

from the description of individual emotional responses

to environmental circumstances.

P. Bogdanov, M. Busch, J. Moehlis, A. K. Singh and B.K. Szymanski, “The Social Media Genome: Modeling

Individual Topic-Specific Behavior in Social Media”, arXiv: 1307.0309 v1(2013)

(http://arxiv.org/abs/1307.0309).

Descriptions of emotions do not necessarily require the use of emotion

words. In some cases characters experience undefined affective states,

whose description just features somatic responses to specific environmental conditions (both natural or social, of

course).

For instance, the revelation of the damsel, who informs Lancelot that both the comb and the hair belong to queen Guenièvre,

causes the knight to experience a state of overwhelming upheaval. The description

only focuses on somatic correlates and ensuing actions: after bending on the

saddle, Lancelot grabs the pommel so as to avoid falling off the horse (vv.1420-

1444).Chrétien de Troyes, Le chevalier de la Charrette (Lancelot), cit., pp. 82-84

“Undefined” Emotions--Trop a certes m’an apelez, Fet ele, si le vos dirai, De rien nule n’an mantirai : Cist peignes, se j’onques soi rien, Fu la reïne, jel sai bien ; Et d’une chose me creez, Que li chevol que vos veez Si biax, si clers et si luisanz, Qui sont remés antre les danz, Que del chief la reïne furent : Onques en autre pré ne crurent.» Et li chevaliers dit : «Par foi, Assez sont reïnes et roi ; Mes de la quel volez vos dire?» Et cele dit : «Par ma foi, sire, De la fame le roi Artu.» Quant cil l’ot, n’a tant de vertu Que tot nel coveigne ploier ; Par force l’estut apoier Devant a l’arçon de la sele Et quant ce vit la dameisele, Si s’an mervoille et esbaïst Qu’ele cuida que il cheïst ; S’ele ot peor, ne l’en blasmez, Qu’ele cuida qu’il fust pasmez

Erec approaches the adventure of the Joie de la Cort and the mervoille showing in

front of him presents the heads of the defeated knights hanging from pegs (5764-5782). From the last peg, still

awaiting the next victim, hangs a horn which the winner, if any, will be required

to blow after he defeats the giant defending the garden.

Interestingly, «s’an effrie» at verse 5788 is a singularis reading of Guiot’s

manuscript (BNF, fr. 794, c. 22 v., col. B). The other manuscripts have «ne se

detrie».

Chrétien de Troyes, Erec et Enide, a c. di. P. F. Dembowski, in Oeuvres complètes, a c. di D. Poirion, Anne Berthelot, P.F. Dembowski, S. Lefèvre et al., Gallimard, Paris, pp. 1-169, p. 141.

Emotion Words and Textual Variation 1

Calogrenant is retelling the story of his failed adventure. Before encountering the guardian

des bêtes, he meets the bêtes themselves, whose nature changes according to different

readings:

H 280 Tors salvages ors et lieparz P 280 Tors sauvages et esparars

V 280 Torz sauvages et espaarzF 280 Et tors savages et lupars

G 280 Trois ors sauvages et .i. liepart A 280 Ors sauvages lions lupars

S 280 Tors sauvaiges ours et lupars R 280 Et tors salvages et lupars

Interestingly, AG do not mention bulls which scare the knight, causing him to step back (v.

285). More interestingly indeed, Guiot (H) does not mention fear as the cause of

Calogrenant’s awkward move.

K. Meyer, Transcription synoptique des manuscrits et fragments du Chevalier au Lion par Chrétien de Troyes, Université d’Ottawa, Faculté des Arts, Laboratoire de français ancien (http://www.uottawa.ca/academic/arts/lfa/activites/textes/kmeyer/kpres.html)

Emotion Words and Textual Variation 2

What do We find?1) emotional states described in medieval verse romance are typically attributed to specific characters in response to perceptual interaction with their natural and/or social environment;2) descriptions of affective states are typically supplemented by additional remarks stressing somatic correlates of emotions; 3) descriptions of specific affective states do not imply fixed reference to specific somatic correlates.4) emotional states affecting characters are sometimes described only on the basis of the somatic correlates they imply; 5) descriptions of affective states and ensuing actions are typically related and often connected by causal prepositions and conjunctions;6) the development of character-specific affective states is regulated by meaningful transitions, specific perceptual events being responsible for the change from an affective state to another.7) a multilayered emotional perspective emerges from descriptions which present frequent transitions from the affective state of a character to that of another and often imply first or second-level theory of mind;8) as suggested by Frank Brandsma, ‘mirror characters’ are described as reacting to specific environmental circumstances in a way which most likely aims at influencing the audience to react accordingly;9) sometimes affective states manifested by mirror characters are intentionally opposite to those affecting leading characters, so as to qualify the latter as exceptional;10) the same environmental circumstances may trigger opposite affective responses in different characters or groups;11) emotion words are occasionally included in counterfactual and semifactual descriptions of affective states;12) co-occurrence of emotion words defines an integrated lexical network which underlies the romance’s emotional dimension;13) some emotion words co-occur on a regular basis so as to constitute descriptive patterns referring to twofold (or multiple) affective states;14) subsets of emotional responses specifically pertain to specific classes of characters;15) descriptions of emotional states not only differ on the basis of gender, age, rank, or are consistent with the social roles of affected characters, but also define their individual temperaments and identities;16) recurrent descriptions of specific emotions may define linear paths which underlie the romance’s main thematic drives;17) medieval redactors interfere with the emotional tone of specific episodes by adopting textual solutions which reflect their own understanding of the reason why characters act the way they do.

Additional findings: “matching” narrative perspectives and comparisons

Chevalier au Lion

vv. 960-967Mout angosseus et entreprinsRemest dedens la sale enclos,Qui tout estoit chele a closDorés et paintes les masieresDe boine oevre et de couleurs chieres.Mais de riens si grant duel n'avoitCon de che quë il ne savoitQuel part chil en estoit alés.

vv. 3634-3637Ma vie et mon cors me sauvastesEntre les deux portes coulans,Lau je fui pensis et dolansEt angosseus et entreprins.

Chrétien describes Yvain as anxious and imprisoned in Laudine’s castle, after he

killed Esclados. Around 3000 verses later the protagonist uses the same words while

retrospectively describing himself to Lunete (and of course he expands adding some

other adjectives, such as pensis and dolans), when he encounters her again after

he failed to commit suicide.

Interestingly, Chrétien often provides the reader and the audience with some

comparisons between the emotions which characters are actually feeling in the

narrative present and previous or forthcoming affective states they

experienced or are about to experience

Previous Papers Covering These Subjects…

 A. P. Fuksas, Embodied Abstraction and Emotional Resonance in Chrétien's Chevalier de la Charrette, in «Cognitive Philology», 4 (2011), 1-14 (http://ojs.uniroma1.it/index.php/cogphil/article/view/9600).

A. P. Fuksas, Ire, Peor and their Somatic Correlates in Chrétien’s Chevalier de la Charrette, in Arthurian Emotions, ed. by F. Brandsma, C. Larrington, C. Saunders, Woodbridge, D. S. Brewer, 2015, pp. 67-85.

Characters and EmotionsThe following tables show the emotions which Chrétien’s protagonists actually feel, openly do not feel, would, will or won’t feel according to the descriptions provided by the storyteller, together with those that other characters speculate they are or aren’t feeling and those that they just simulate. That’s what we obtain after lemmatizing the entries on an lexical basis.

Semifactual descriptions of emotions are equated to descriptions of actual affective states, since they refer to feelings which would have been felt in different conditions.

Counterfactual descriptions are rather specified as _NEG, because they refer to the feelings which are not felt at all.

Romanesque Characters as AIThese case studies should not be received as an attempt to develop an emerging artificial intelligence aimed to automatically find descriptions of emotions in literary texts, a task which goes far beyond the scope of this research. Rather, the provided examples are set to show that the characters of medieval romances, and very likely the characters of modern novels as well, are proper Artificial Intelligences themselves, whose operational mechanisms can be detected and understood on the basis of a philological reverse engineering.

Erec

Cligès

Yvain

Lancelot – Emotion Words

Common feelingsThe affective characterization of Chrétien’s protagonists is a long tail system. Indeed, more than half, in some cases 2/3, of the emotion words describing the characters’ feelings just occur once. A very small number of them, an average of 1/10, are the “hit” words occurring very often, typically describing feelings which are common to all the male protagonists.

Many other emotion words listed in the previous slides can easily be associated to these, since they share the same etymology and meaning. Hence, data based on an iper-lemmatization would make these figures even more compelling.

Long Tail and Individual Feelings

Hence, a large overlapping area mainly concerns the more frequent items, which are more closely related to the thematic and ideological plan of the genre, as well as that of the individual romances. The specific items which characterize the characters in a more individual way are those that occur the less, that is those distributed along the long tail of the system.

This very concept will be stressed by means of comparison of some male and female protagonists, starting with Erec et Enide.

Erec et Enide

Stereotypical Traits?

Erec’s feelings are described by 75 items (31 of witch can be iper-lemmatized on an etymological basis to 13) for 152 entries. 24 items for 79 entries (37 for 102 if iper-lemmatized) are in common with Enide. The most frequent 7 items are in common with Enide (9 on 10 if iper-lemmatized). 15 items for 27 entries refer to somatic implications of feelings. Enide’s emotions are described by 87 items (42 of witch can be iper-lemmatized to 16) for 218 entries. 24 items are in common with Enide for 79 entries (37 for 102 if iper-lemmatized). Essentially, half of described Enide’s feelings are in common with Erec, but among the most frequent only the top 2 range in that list (but 6 on 10 if iper-lemmatized). Not plorer, since Erec never cries and not peor, which is an emotion Erec is only described as not experiencing at all in just one case, whereas Enide is described as ‘scared’ in seven circumstances. 37 items refer to somatic implications of feelings for 78 entries, more than doubling Erec’s in this field.

Erec’s Long Tail

Erec’s top 16 items count for 78 entries. The other 59 items count for 74 and the last 44 just feature unique entries, whereas the top 3 respectively count 17, 8, 7. Data based on an iper-lemmatization would make these figures even more compelling.

Enide’s Long TailEnide’s Long Tail

Enide’s top 12 items count for 104 entries. The other 76 items count for 116. 46 items just feature unique entries; 17 items feature a pair of entries (total 34) and 12 three entries (total 36). Again, data based on an iper-lemmatization would make these figures even more compelling

Erec’s and Enide’s “healty mind”

More findings emerge from the graph obtained by connecting all the occurrences on the basis of the context in which they co-occur. It appears rather clear that all items are substantially connected to the others in a continuous system. The continuity of the system can be understood as the sign of characters’ consistency, adding a new layer to Segre’s idea of “realism” based on the storyteller’s adoption of complex emotional perspectives. On a more general level, these findings support the idea that the romance as a genre (and the modern novel even more), and each romance as a whole (and each modern novel even more) are highly idealized theories of the neurotypical healthy mind, which embed a model of how the human mind should work so as to ensure individual social efficiency.

Etymologic Iper-Lemmatization

Data processing of the following graphs is based on a “mild” etymological iper-lemmatization (left column concerns Erec, right column Enide):

Erec’s Consistent Affective System

Enide’s Long TailEnide’s Consistent Affective

System

Lancelot’s Emotions - Cloud

Lancelot Emotions - Graph

This is what you would do if informatics were unavailable. Essentially you would try to connect all the words in a graph which would get more and more complex till the point you wouldn’t be anymore able to make sense of what you’re doing.

Lancelot Emotions - Graph

This is what you get after you encode the emotion words in a file such as previously shown and opening it into graphviz

Lancelot Emotions - Graph

The few emotion words which are isolated from the main graph would be easily connected after a “mild” iper-lemmatization. Indeed, they are mostly negative occurrences of connected words or verbs which are etymologically related to connected nouns.

Meleagant’s Emotions

The affective states of the “bad guy” are often described from his father’s point of view. Bademagu explains to others what his son is actually feeling and why and provides his son information on the affective implications of decisions he would eventually take or not.

Meleagant’s Emotions - Graph

Meleagant’s Ire

Meleagant affective states are mostly “negative” and the graph shows that ire is clearly the key-node.

Meleagant’s Emotions - Graph

Strength of the force-lines clearly suggests that Ire can be interpreted as the villain’s “thematic emotion”.

Good Guy/Bad Guy: Common feelings

The words describing emotional states which are common to both characters are:

11 on 31 words which contribute to the description of Meleagant’s affective states are also used in the description of Lancelot’s emotions. About 1/3.

Guenièvre - Emotion WordsGuenièvre is by far the more complex

character after Lancelot in terms

of the variety of words which

contribute to the description of her

feelings.

Moreover, together with Lancelot, she

is the only character whose emotional states

are also presented via allegorical

description.

Guenièvre’s Emotions - Cloud

Guenièvre’s Emotions - Graph

As shown in the case of the protagonist, more complexity does not imply more fragmentation. The lexical network looks fully integrated indeed.

Male leading/Female Leading: Common feelings

41 on 69 words contributing to the description of

Guenièvre’s affective states are also used in the

description of Lancelot’s emotions. More than ½, near

2/3.

Among the words which describe both the emotional

states of Lancelot and Guenièvre all the more

recurrent give a match, but honor (male leading) and the

circumlocutions for silent, speechless, unspeaking

(female leading).

In sum…All characters show a tight consistency, which means that co-occurrence of emotion words define a very connected graph in all cases. The affective spectrum of all characters define a long tail curve, the more recurrent words being those which all male and female characters are more likely to share. Accordingly, fine affective tuning of characters depends on occasional occurrences of specific emotion words which define their unique, individual emotional profile.

Erec et Enide presents more stereotypical traits than the Chevalier de la Charrette, for reasons which likely depend on the status and age of both male and female characters. Erec is a young knight, Enide is a damsel who turns into wife and dame. Lancelot is an experienced knight and Guenièvre is not only a dame, but also the queen herself.

The comparison between Lancelot and Meleagant in the Chevalier de la Charrette shows that the affective spectrum of the hero is five times more complex than the villain’s, which is essentially a one-track minded character.

Data collected from a Hollywood blockbuster would likely look more or less the same.