Jane Stevenson
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780198185024
- eISBN:
- 9780191714238
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198185024.003.0009
- Subject:
- Literature, Women's Literature
This chapter examines late medieval aristocratic French women's patronage of writing in the vernacular and of translation. It discusses Christine de Pizan and educated women in 15th-century France. ...
More
This chapter examines late medieval aristocratic French women's patronage of writing in the vernacular and of translation. It discusses Christine de Pizan and educated women in 15th-century France. It also considers the reception of humanism at the French court, and the involvement of royal women as educators and scholars, particularly Marguerite de Navarre, Marguerite de Valois, and Mary Stuart. Non-royal women humanists connected with the French court, especially the scholar-courtier Camille de Morel and her relationship with the poets of the Pléiade, are discussed. The rise of academies at the court and in Lyons, and the involvement of women are explored, together with the importance of Lyons as a provincial center, the Mesdames Des Roches, and Louise Labé. Marie de Gournay is presented as an unusual example of the autodidact Latinist.Less
This chapter examines late medieval aristocratic French women's patronage of writing in the vernacular and of translation. It discusses Christine de Pizan and educated women in 15th-century France. It also considers the reception of humanism at the French court, and the involvement of royal women as educators and scholars, particularly Marguerite de Navarre, Marguerite de Valois, and Mary Stuart. Non-royal women humanists connected with the French court, especially the scholar-courtier Camille de Morel and her relationship with the poets of the Pléiade, are discussed. The rise of academies at the court and in Lyons, and the involvement of women are explored, together with the importance of Lyons as a provincial center, the Mesdames Des Roches, and Louise Labé. Marie de Gournay is presented as an unusual example of the autodidact Latinist.
Todd W. Reeser
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226307008
- eISBN:
- 9780226307145
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226307145.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This chapter considers how feminism and male-male love can operate in tension. Same-sex male sexuality was sometimes perceived as misogynistic in pro-woman arguments in the early-modern debate over ...
More
This chapter considers how feminism and male-male love can operate in tension. Same-sex male sexuality was sometimes perceived as misogynistic in pro-woman arguments in the early-modern debate over the nature and status of women. As a key case study in this cultural tension, the center of this chapter is a reading of Marguerite de Navarre’s Heptameron, a feminist collection of tales heavily inflected with Neoplatonism. To prepare for a reading of this text, the mid-century French context of the reception of Plato is discussed. A close-reading of the Heptameron reveals that intimacy between men has to be fractured in order to create a version of heterosexuality that can subsequently lead to pro-woman ends. In a number of cases, male-male intimacy is transformed into what might be termed heterosexuality. The text, however, sends a specific message about the nature of male-male love, as the narrative corresponds to techniques of rewriting Plato seen in contemporaneous French translations of Plato, especially the Symposium version by Louis Le Roy. Male-male love, then, is evoked but then visibly written out in Marguerite de Navarre in ways that the French translations use to transform the eroticism in Plato’s text.Less
This chapter considers how feminism and male-male love can operate in tension. Same-sex male sexuality was sometimes perceived as misogynistic in pro-woman arguments in the early-modern debate over the nature and status of women. As a key case study in this cultural tension, the center of this chapter is a reading of Marguerite de Navarre’s Heptameron, a feminist collection of tales heavily inflected with Neoplatonism. To prepare for a reading of this text, the mid-century French context of the reception of Plato is discussed. A close-reading of the Heptameron reveals that intimacy between men has to be fractured in order to create a version of heterosexuality that can subsequently lead to pro-woman ends. In a number of cases, male-male intimacy is transformed into what might be termed heterosexuality. The text, however, sends a specific message about the nature of male-male love, as the narrative corresponds to techniques of rewriting Plato seen in contemporaneous French translations of Plato, especially the Symposium version by Louis Le Roy. Male-male love, then, is evoked but then visibly written out in Marguerite de Navarre in ways that the French translations use to transform the eroticism in Plato’s text.
Wes Williams
- Published in print:
- 1998
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198159407
- eISBN:
- 9780191673610
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198159407.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This book studies the place and meaning of pilgrimage in European Renaissance culture. It makes new material available and also provides fresh perspectives on canonical writers such as Rabelais, ...
More
This book studies the place and meaning of pilgrimage in European Renaissance culture. It makes new material available and also provides fresh perspectives on canonical writers such as Rabelais, Montaigne, Marguerite de Navarre, Erasmus, Petrarch, Augustine, and Gregory of Nyssa. The book undertakes a bold exploration of various interlinking themes in Renaissance pilgrimage: the location, representation, and politics of the sacred, together with the experience of the everyday, the extraordinary, the religious, and the represented. It also examines the literary formation of the subjective narrative voice in the texts examined, and its relationship to the rituals and practices the book reviews. This book aims both to gain a sense of the shapes of pilgrim experience in the Renaissance and to question the ways in which recent theoretical and historical research in the area has determined the differences between fictional worlds and the real.Less
This book studies the place and meaning of pilgrimage in European Renaissance culture. It makes new material available and also provides fresh perspectives on canonical writers such as Rabelais, Montaigne, Marguerite de Navarre, Erasmus, Petrarch, Augustine, and Gregory of Nyssa. The book undertakes a bold exploration of various interlinking themes in Renaissance pilgrimage: the location, representation, and politics of the sacred, together with the experience of the everyday, the extraordinary, the religious, and the represented. It also examines the literary formation of the subjective narrative voice in the texts examined, and its relationship to the rituals and practices the book reviews. This book aims both to gain a sense of the shapes of pilgrim experience in the Renaissance and to question the ways in which recent theoretical and historical research in the area has determined the differences between fictional worlds and the real.
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- February 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226243115
- eISBN:
- 9780226243184
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226243184.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This chapter explores how Marguerite de Navarre depicted literacy as reformation and translation in her book Heptaméron. It suggests that de Navarre appropriated both oral and written materials to ...
More
This chapter explores how Marguerite de Navarre depicted literacy as reformation and translation in her book Heptaméron. It suggests that de Navarre appropriated both oral and written materials to construct an imperialist ideological project of her own and she was able to open and mystify lines of communication among women across generational and class lines. This chapter argues that de Navarre's decision to recreate Marguerite Porete's literary and historical example for new political and theological uses is crucial to her revisionary project of imperial mapping.Less
This chapter explores how Marguerite de Navarre depicted literacy as reformation and translation in her book Heptaméron. It suggests that de Navarre appropriated both oral and written materials to construct an imperialist ideological project of her own and she was able to open and mystify lines of communication among women across generational and class lines. This chapter argues that de Navarre's decision to recreate Marguerite Porete's literary and historical example for new political and theological uses is crucial to her revisionary project of imperial mapping.
Jonathan Patterson
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780198716518
- eISBN:
- 9780191787225
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198716518.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature, European Literature
This chapter looks in more detail at who was considered avaricious, in the context of gender debates. It explores the longstanding antifeminist tradition of denouncing womanly avarice in the querelle ...
More
This chapter looks in more detail at who was considered avaricious, in the context of gender debates. It explores the longstanding antifeminist tradition of denouncing womanly avarice in the querelle des femmes. Case studies of three writers (Bertrand de La Borderie, Marguerite de Navarre, and the Seigneur de Cholières) show the emergence of flexible attitudes to female avarice. La Borderie, Navarre, and Cholières demonstrate in various ways how accusations of avarice against women soon rebound on the men that make them. Discussions of female venality turn towards male sexual desire for the woman’s body; and conversation over women’s deficient giving point to men who are under-generous towards their womenfolk. Cholières even hints that the institution of marriage brings out antagonistic, gender specific forms of avarice in husband and wife. Yet, in economically unstable times, he also foregrounds re-description of stingy housewives as thrifty and prudent (bonnes mesnageres).Less
This chapter looks in more detail at who was considered avaricious, in the context of gender debates. It explores the longstanding antifeminist tradition of denouncing womanly avarice in the querelle des femmes. Case studies of three writers (Bertrand de La Borderie, Marguerite de Navarre, and the Seigneur de Cholières) show the emergence of flexible attitudes to female avarice. La Borderie, Navarre, and Cholières demonstrate in various ways how accusations of avarice against women soon rebound on the men that make them. Discussions of female venality turn towards male sexual desire for the woman’s body; and conversation over women’s deficient giving point to men who are under-generous towards their womenfolk. Cholières even hints that the institution of marriage brings out antagonistic, gender specific forms of avarice in husband and wife. Yet, in economically unstable times, he also foregrounds re-description of stingy housewives as thrifty and prudent (bonnes mesnageres).
Neil Kenny
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- April 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780198852391
- eISBN:
- 9780191886850
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198852391.003.0009
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature, European Literature
Family literature ranged from works of humanist scholarship to history, to poetry, to engineering. There was considerable imitation by relatives of the practices, disciplines, and genres that ...
More
Family literature ranged from works of humanist scholarship to history, to poetry, to engineering. There was considerable imitation by relatives of the practices, disciplines, and genres that preceding relatives had adopted. More generally in family literature, certain preoccupations recurred, for example with history, time, nobility, genealogy, and transmission. Certain structural elements of printed-book objects were fostered by family dynamics: large size; paratexts; bricolage. This chapter surveys some ways in which the preoccupation with propelling families into the future shaped printed books. The survey is of a spectrum of overlapping possibilities: it runs from volumes that were largely presented as being by a single literary producer to ones that were largely presented as being by a family collective.Less
Family literature ranged from works of humanist scholarship to history, to poetry, to engineering. There was considerable imitation by relatives of the practices, disciplines, and genres that preceding relatives had adopted. More generally in family literature, certain preoccupations recurred, for example with history, time, nobility, genealogy, and transmission. Certain structural elements of printed-book objects were fostered by family dynamics: large size; paratexts; bricolage. This chapter surveys some ways in which the preoccupation with propelling families into the future shaped printed books. The survey is of a spectrum of overlapping possibilities: it runs from volumes that were largely presented as being by a single literary producer to ones that were largely presented as being by a family collective.
Floyd Gray
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780853237853
- eISBN:
- 9781846312977
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9780853237853.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
Heptaméron, a collection of short stories by Marguerite de Navarre, highlights a complex relationship between reader and work. From the beginning, Marguerite chooses to be anonymous as she ...
More
Heptaméron, a collection of short stories by Marguerite de Navarre, highlights a complex relationship between reader and work. From the beginning, Marguerite chooses to be anonymous as she relinquishes her role as narrator and commentator to others. The stories are narrated by the devisants, who also act as interpreters and readers based on their own perceptions and prejudices. As both narrators and audience, they appear to represent the author and her readers and incorporate them figuratively into the text. Feminist criticism has been surprisingly slow in discussing the Heptaméron owing to the difficulty of reading Marguerite writing as a woman. This chapter offers a re-reading of the tenth nouvelle in Heptaméron, focusing on elements and structures of writing that imply Marguerite's objectives, along with her absence and the conflicting interventions of the different devisants.Less
Heptaméron, a collection of short stories by Marguerite de Navarre, highlights a complex relationship between reader and work. From the beginning, Marguerite chooses to be anonymous as she relinquishes her role as narrator and commentator to others. The stories are narrated by the devisants, who also act as interpreters and readers based on their own perceptions and prejudices. As both narrators and audience, they appear to represent the author and her readers and incorporate them figuratively into the text. Feminist criticism has been surprisingly slow in discussing the Heptaméron owing to the difficulty of reading Marguerite writing as a woman. This chapter offers a re-reading of the tenth nouvelle in Heptaméron, focusing on elements and structures of writing that imply Marguerite's objectives, along with her absence and the conflicting interventions of the different devisants.
Jonathan Patterson
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780198716518
- eISBN:
- 9780191787225
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198716518.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature, European Literature
Why did people talk so much about avarice in late Renaissance France, nearly a century before Molière’s famous comedy, L’Avare? As wars and economic crises ravaged France on the threshold of ...
More
Why did people talk so much about avarice in late Renaissance France, nearly a century before Molière’s famous comedy, L’Avare? As wars and economic crises ravaged France on the threshold of modernity, avarice was said to be flourishing as never before. Yet by the late sixteenth century, a number of French writers would argue that in some contexts, avaricious behaviour was not straightforwardly sinful or harmful. Considerations of social rank, gender, object pursued, time, and circumstance led some to question age-old beliefs. Traditionally reviled groups (rapacious usurers, greedy lawyers, miserly fathers, covetous women) might still exhibit unmistakable signs of avarice-but perhaps not invariably, in an age of shifting social, economic and intellectual values. Across a large, diverse corpus of French texts, this book shows how a range of flexible genres nourished by humanism tended to offset traditional condemnation of avarice and avares with innovative, mitigating perspectives, arising from subjective experience. In such writings, an avaricious disposition could be re-described as something less vicious, excusable, or even expedient. In this word history of avarice, close readings of well-known authors (Marguerite de Navarre, Ronsard, Montaigne), and of their lesser-known contemporaries are connected to broader socio-economic developments of the late French Renaissance (c.1540-1615). The final chapter situates key themes in relation to Molière’s L’Avare. As such, this book newly illuminates debates about avarice within broader cultural preoccupations surrounding gender, enrichment and status in early modern France.Less
Why did people talk so much about avarice in late Renaissance France, nearly a century before Molière’s famous comedy, L’Avare? As wars and economic crises ravaged France on the threshold of modernity, avarice was said to be flourishing as never before. Yet by the late sixteenth century, a number of French writers would argue that in some contexts, avaricious behaviour was not straightforwardly sinful or harmful. Considerations of social rank, gender, object pursued, time, and circumstance led some to question age-old beliefs. Traditionally reviled groups (rapacious usurers, greedy lawyers, miserly fathers, covetous women) might still exhibit unmistakable signs of avarice-but perhaps not invariably, in an age of shifting social, economic and intellectual values. Across a large, diverse corpus of French texts, this book shows how a range of flexible genres nourished by humanism tended to offset traditional condemnation of avarice and avares with innovative, mitigating perspectives, arising from subjective experience. In such writings, an avaricious disposition could be re-described as something less vicious, excusable, or even expedient. In this word history of avarice, close readings of well-known authors (Marguerite de Navarre, Ronsard, Montaigne), and of their lesser-known contemporaries are connected to broader socio-economic developments of the late French Renaissance (c.1540-1615). The final chapter situates key themes in relation to Molière’s L’Avare. As such, this book newly illuminates debates about avarice within broader cultural preoccupations surrounding gender, enrichment and status in early modern France.
Simon Gaunt
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199272075
- eISBN:
- 9780191709869
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199272075.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature
This concluding chapter returns to the question of ethics, using a lyric by Gulhem IX, the first troubadour, to illustrate how courtly texts instantiate an ethics grounded in renunciation. It then ...
More
This concluding chapter returns to the question of ethics, using a lyric by Gulhem IX, the first troubadour, to illustrate how courtly texts instantiate an ethics grounded in renunciation. It then offers a survey of selected post-medieval texts that seem to draw on this paradigm.Less
This concluding chapter returns to the question of ethics, using a lyric by Gulhem IX, the first troubadour, to illustrate how courtly texts instantiate an ethics grounded in renunciation. It then offers a survey of selected post-medieval texts that seem to draw on this paradigm.
Nancy M. Frelick
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780853237853
- eISBN:
- 9781846312977
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9780853237853.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
Jacques Lacan argues that the dynamics of desire is fundamentally exemplified by fetishism. In addition to illustrating the illusory nature of the object of desire, fetishism highlights the way the ...
More
Jacques Lacan argues that the dynamics of desire is fundamentally exemplified by fetishism. In addition to illustrating the illusory nature of the object of desire, fetishism highlights the way the subject attempts to (re)constitute himself through his relation with the fetishised object. This chapter examines the dynamic described by Lacan in the fifty-seventh nouvelle of Heptaméron, a collection of short stories by Marguerite de Navarre. Nouvelle 57 is clearly a critique of the idolisation of women as antifeminist as well as a commentary on texts that employ synecdoches and part-objects to portray the beloved. The chapter also analyses the fetish as a visual sign, metaphor and metonymy in relation to the imaginary.Less
Jacques Lacan argues that the dynamics of desire is fundamentally exemplified by fetishism. In addition to illustrating the illusory nature of the object of desire, fetishism highlights the way the subject attempts to (re)constitute himself through his relation with the fetishised object. This chapter examines the dynamic described by Lacan in the fifty-seventh nouvelle of Heptaméron, a collection of short stories by Marguerite de Navarre. Nouvelle 57 is clearly a critique of the idolisation of women as antifeminist as well as a commentary on texts that employ synecdoches and part-objects to portray the beloved. The chapter also analyses the fetish as a visual sign, metaphor and metonymy in relation to the imaginary.
David C. Steinmetz
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195130485
- eISBN:
- 9780199869008
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195130480.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity
The French Humanist, Faber Stapulensis (Lefèvre d’Étaples), identified with circles of reform in France, most notably the circle of reform associated with Marguerite de Navarre, the sister of King ...
More
The French Humanist, Faber Stapulensis (Lefèvre d’Étaples), identified with circles of reform in France, most notably the circle of reform associated with Marguerite de Navarre, the sister of King Francis I. He was best known for his work on the Hebrew text of the Bible and his hermeneutical theories, which stressed the importance of the literal–prophetic sense of the Bible over any possible literal–historical meanings.Less
The French Humanist, Faber Stapulensis (Lefèvre d’Étaples), identified with circles of reform in France, most notably the circle of reform associated with Marguerite de Navarre, the sister of King Francis I. He was best known for his work on the Hebrew text of the Bible and his hermeneutical theories, which stressed the importance of the literal–prophetic sense of the Bible over any possible literal–historical meanings.
Neil Kenny
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- December 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780198754039
- eISBN:
- 9780191815782
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198754039.003.0011
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
This section examines the use of tenses to refer to the dead in a genre that was just as codified as epitaphs but more oriented toward the pain of bereavement: consolation literature. The analysis is ...
More
This section examines the use of tenses to refer to the dead in a genre that was just as codified as epitaphs but more oriented toward the pain of bereavement: consolation literature. The analysis is mainly limited to two examples: a verse epistle that Marguerite de Navarre addressed to her nephew, the new king Henri II, following the death in 1547 of François Ier (her brother and Henri’s father); and a piece that Guillaume Du Vair wrote, probably in 1584, on the death of his thirty-year-old sister that year in a cholera epidemic. Tenses did not always contribute in consolation literature to producing neat cut-off points between what part of the dead person was present (in various senses) and what was past or absent (in various senses), but they enabled writers to explore the difficulty, and sometimes the pain, of trying to establish or recognize such cut-off points.Less
This section examines the use of tenses to refer to the dead in a genre that was just as codified as epitaphs but more oriented toward the pain of bereavement: consolation literature. The analysis is mainly limited to two examples: a verse epistle that Marguerite de Navarre addressed to her nephew, the new king Henri II, following the death in 1547 of François Ier (her brother and Henri’s father); and a piece that Guillaume Du Vair wrote, probably in 1584, on the death of his thirty-year-old sister that year in a cholera epidemic. Tenses did not always contribute in consolation literature to producing neat cut-off points between what part of the dead person was present (in various senses) and what was past or absent (in various senses), but they enabled writers to explore the difficulty, and sometimes the pain, of trying to establish or recognize such cut-off points.
Emily Butterworth
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780199662302
- eISBN:
- 9780191770470
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199662302.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature, European Literature
This book looks at gossip, rumour, and talking too much in Renaissance France and explores why these forms of talk were considered dangerous. Taking its cue from Erasmus’s Lingua, in which both the ...
More
This book looks at gossip, rumour, and talking too much in Renaissance France and explores why these forms of talk were considered dangerous. Taking its cue from Erasmus’s Lingua, in which both the subjective and political consequences of an idle and unbridled tongue are emphasized, the book investigates the impact of gossip and rumour on contemporary conceptions of identity and political engagement. The book discusses prescriptive literature on the tongue and theological discussions of Pentecost and prophecy, and then covers nearly a century in chapters focused on single texts: Rabelais’s Tiers Livre, Marguerite de Navarre’s Heptaméron, Ronsard’s Discours des misères de ce temps, Montaigne’s Essais, Brantôme’s Dames galantes, and the anonymous Caquets de l’accouchée. In covering the ‘long sixteenth century’, the book investigates the impact of the French Wars of Religion on perceptions of gossip and rumour, and places them in the context of an emerging public sphere of political critique and discussion, principally through the figure of the ‘public voice’ which, although it was associated with unruly utterance, was nevertheless a powerful rhetorical tool for the expression of grievances. The Cynic virtue of parrhesia, or free speech, is similarly ambivalent in many accounts, oscillating between bold truth-telling (liberté) and disordered babble (licence). Drawing on modern and pre-modern theories of the uses and function of gossip, the book argues that, despite this ambivalence in descriptions of the tongue, gossip, and idle talk were finally excluded from the public sphere by being associated with the feminine and the irrational.Less
This book looks at gossip, rumour, and talking too much in Renaissance France and explores why these forms of talk were considered dangerous. Taking its cue from Erasmus’s Lingua, in which both the subjective and political consequences of an idle and unbridled tongue are emphasized, the book investigates the impact of gossip and rumour on contemporary conceptions of identity and political engagement. The book discusses prescriptive literature on the tongue and theological discussions of Pentecost and prophecy, and then covers nearly a century in chapters focused on single texts: Rabelais’s Tiers Livre, Marguerite de Navarre’s Heptaméron, Ronsard’s Discours des misères de ce temps, Montaigne’s Essais, Brantôme’s Dames galantes, and the anonymous Caquets de l’accouchée. In covering the ‘long sixteenth century’, the book investigates the impact of the French Wars of Religion on perceptions of gossip and rumour, and places them in the context of an emerging public sphere of political critique and discussion, principally through the figure of the ‘public voice’ which, although it was associated with unruly utterance, was nevertheless a powerful rhetorical tool for the expression of grievances. The Cynic virtue of parrhesia, or free speech, is similarly ambivalent in many accounts, oscillating between bold truth-telling (liberté) and disordered babble (licence). Drawing on modern and pre-modern theories of the uses and function of gossip, the book argues that, despite this ambivalence in descriptions of the tongue, gossip, and idle talk were finally excluded from the public sphere by being associated with the feminine and the irrational.
Jonathan Patterson
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- June 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780198840015
- eISBN:
- 9780191875625
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198840015.003.0009
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature, European Literature
At the centre of this book is an analysis of what Rabelais called ‘la plus grande villanie du monde’—‘the world’s greatest villainy’ (Pantagruel chs. 21–2). In this episode, Panurge enacts a vengeful ...
More
At the centre of this book is an analysis of what Rabelais called ‘la plus grande villanie du monde’—‘the world’s greatest villainy’ (Pantagruel chs. 21–2). In this episode, Panurge enacts a vengeful trick on a Haughty Lady who spurned his advances. Chapter 8 evaluates divergent allegorical readings of the trick in relation to the episode’s farcical, scatological, and legal overtones. Since there is no judicial redress, Rabelais leaves us with an unfixed vilain et énorme cas of sorts: a situation that is morally, criminally, and aesthetically vilain; and énorme in an ever-expanding, spatial sense. Across the chapter, Panurge’s expansive villainy (panourgia) is explored in relation to his ageist–sexist tendencies, and in relation to his taste for facetious litigation (causes grasses) in the first half of Pantagruel. To these may be added his remonstrating against the scandalous ‘heretic’ Raminograbis and his cowardly, diabolical ravings (Tiers Livre chs. 21–3).Less
At the centre of this book is an analysis of what Rabelais called ‘la plus grande villanie du monde’—‘the world’s greatest villainy’ (Pantagruel chs. 21–2). In this episode, Panurge enacts a vengeful trick on a Haughty Lady who spurned his advances. Chapter 8 evaluates divergent allegorical readings of the trick in relation to the episode’s farcical, scatological, and legal overtones. Since there is no judicial redress, Rabelais leaves us with an unfixed vilain et énorme cas of sorts: a situation that is morally, criminally, and aesthetically vilain; and énorme in an ever-expanding, spatial sense. Across the chapter, Panurge’s expansive villainy (panourgia) is explored in relation to his ageist–sexist tendencies, and in relation to his taste for facetious litigation (causes grasses) in the first half of Pantagruel. To these may be added his remonstrating against the scandalous ‘heretic’ Raminograbis and his cowardly, diabolical ravings (Tiers Livre chs. 21–3).
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- February 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226243115
- eISBN:
- 9780226243184
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226243184.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This chapter discusses the contents and objective of this book which is to explore the history of female literary in the context of the story of Dido, a character in a Latin epic poem. It explains ...
More
This chapter discusses the contents and objective of this book which is to explore the history of female literary in the context of the story of Dido, a character in a Latin epic poem. It explains that Dido's stories dramatize the existence of competing histories in what counts as the cultural literacy of the West. This chapter suggests that the idea of a uniform national language has a long and socially fraught history that, when studied, invites us to complicate our ideas about what it means to be literate in one's national language. This volume examines the problems of defining and valuing literacy in the late medieval and early modern polities in imperial nations and presents case studies of four women writers including Christine de Pizan, Marguerite de Navarre, Elizabeth Cary and Aphra Behn.Less
This chapter discusses the contents and objective of this book which is to explore the history of female literary in the context of the story of Dido, a character in a Latin epic poem. It explains that Dido's stories dramatize the existence of competing histories in what counts as the cultural literacy of the West. This chapter suggests that the idea of a uniform national language has a long and socially fraught history that, when studied, invites us to complicate our ideas about what it means to be literate in one's national language. This volume examines the problems of defining and valuing literacy in the late medieval and early modern polities in imperial nations and presents case studies of four women writers including Christine de Pizan, Marguerite de Navarre, Elizabeth Cary and Aphra Behn.
