Abstract
In three Middle English texts (Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Tale, The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell, The Marriage of Sir Gawain) the character who is searching for the answer to the question of what it is that all women desire is told that they want sovereignty over men. However, in the Wrake van Ragisel, the Middle Dutch adaptation of the Vengeance Raguidel which forms part of the Lancelot Compilation, Walewein, who is transformed into a dwarf, learns that women are exclusively led by their sexual desire. This different answer can be explained by looking at the Lancelot Compilation as a whole. In this article it is argued that the misogynistic message serves to pardon Walewein, the compiler's favourite.
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Besamusca, B. In Quest of What's on a Woman's Mind. Gauvain as Dwarf in the Middle Dutch Wrake van Ragisel . Neophilologus 87, 589–596 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1025433921360
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1025433921360