Pathologies of Love: Medicine and the Woman Question in Early Modern France
342
Pathologies of Love: Medicine and the Woman Question in Early Modern France
342eBook
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Overview
In Pathologies of Love, Judy Kem looks at the writings of Christine de Pizan, Jean Molinet, Symphorien Champier, Jean Lemaire de Belges, and Marguerite de Navarre, examining the role of received medical ideas in the querelle des femmes. She reconstructs how these authors interpreted the traditional courtly understanding of women’s pity or mercy on a dying lover, their understanding of contemporary debates about women’s supposed sexual insatiability and its biological effects on men’s lives and fertility, and how erotomania or erotic melancholy was understood as a fatal illness. While the two women who frame this study defended women and based much of what they wrote on personal experience, the three men appealed to male authority and tradition in their writings.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781496216854 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Nebraska |
| Publication date: | 12/01/2019 |
| Series: | Women and Gender in the Early Modern World |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 342 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Love or Seduction?
Christine de Pizan's Legacy from the Querelle de la Rose to the Querelle des Femmes
As previously noted, women's biological difference and its supposed connection to inferior moral character and intelligence were at the heart of the querelle des femmes. Many critics trace the querelle to misogynistic writings by such Greek and Roman authors as Aristotle, Plautus, and Ovid, while others believe it originated and grew in intensity in France after the querelle de la rose (1401–2), a literary dispute over the thirteenth-century Roman de la rose. Christine de Pizan (1365–1434) started the debate by writing a poem in defense of women, "L'epistre au dieu d'amours" (1399), in which she accuses men of trying to seduce women and attacks Ovid and others — especially Jean de Meun's continuation of Guillaume de Lorris's romance. Why, she asks, does de Meun need to use such formidable weapons against such a supposedly weak-minded and morally compromised foe?
In the poem, Christine asks for Cupid's help in defending women from men who defame them, such as Jean de Meun, and she takes to task the courtly love convention that women should surrender to men who claim that they are suffering from the ill effects of love or unrequited passion:
The loyal lovers' pose they strike is false.
Hiding behind their myriad deceits,
They go declaring that a woman's love Inflames them sorely, keeps their hearts locked up;
The first laments, the second's heart is wrenched,
The next pretends to fill with tears, and sighs;
Another claims to sicken horribly:
Because of love's travail he's grown quite pale,
Now perishing, now very nearly dead.
Swearing their fervent oaths, they lie and vow To be discreet and true, and then they crow.
Christine thus describes men's attempts to seduce women by feigning ills or claiming that they might die from unrequited love. Here she alludes to lovesickness, an extreme form of courtly love that medical writers, like Jacques Ferrand, would later call a potentially fatal illness. The querelle de la rose started shortly after as an exchange of letters.
The Querelle de la Rose
In this literary and epistolary debate Christine de Pizan and Jean Gerson (1363–1429), French theologian and chancellor of the University of Paris, attacked Jean de Meun's continuation of Guillaume de Lorris's allegorical romance for its vulgarity, questionable advice on love, and ill treatment of women. Their critiques as well as Jean de Montreuil and Gontier and Pierre Col's defenses of de Meun have been well documented in recent years. In one letter, Jean Gerson cites eight articles, or objections, to the romance:6 in the first, he asserts that the Old Woman teaches all young girls to sell their bodies and to deceive and lie; in the second, he objects to the Jealous Man who blames all women without exception; in the third, he attacks de Meun's assertion that celibacy among priests runs counter to Nature; in the fourth, sixth, and eighth articles, he accuses de Meun of using "extremely lustful, dirty, and forbidden words" and naming "shameful parts of the body and ugly, evil sins with holy and saintly words"; and in the fifth and seventh, he accuses the author of waging war on all virtues and encouraging carnal acts outside of marriage. Christine, who, according to Earl Jeffrey Richards, shared an "intellectual friendship" with Jean Gerson and owed much to his humanism, agreed with and expanded upon his articles. In various letters to the defenders of the romance, she objects to de Meun's too-candid naming of the "secret" parts of the body (Raison ... nomme les secrés membres plainement par non), the dubious teachings of the Old Woman, lust portrayed as morally superior to virtue, and the "shameful conclusion" (honteuse conclusion) in which the lover gains the rose. She also criticizes de Meun's description of married ladies who deceive their husbands and his recording of evil deeds performed by women in the chapter on jealousy, even though, she adds, some excuse it as the words of the Jealous Man and not those of the author (Et la laidure qui la est recordee des femmes, dient plusseurs en luy excusant que ce fait le Jaloux qui parle). She asserts that "he dared to defame and blame a whole sex without exception" (osa diffamer et blasmer tout ung sexe sans exepcion), and while she admits that the romance has some good parts, she states that since human nature tends toward evil, the other parts could cause people to opt for a dissolute and shameful life.
Some modern critics insist that the debate was simply an exercise in rhetoric, but critics like Joan Kelly do not agree:
The repetitiveness of the misogynist tradition nonetheless affected the responses of the prowomen side. Called again and again to rebut a flood of arguments that women were excluded from the concept of man in scripture, were not truly human, and were subject to man by the authority of religion and history, the feminists reiterated their ideas, which in themselves were novel, but did not develop them further. The static quality of the genre should not mislead us into accepting the commonly held notion that the querelle was a kind of literary game, however. Both its misogyny and its feminism expressed passionately held views and tell, as well, of a historically changing gender construction that was being imposed and resisted.
Indeed, the defenders of the romance appeared outraged and did not stop at personal attacks on both Gerson and Christine — especially Christine. Jean de Montreuil, provost of Lille, defends the romance by citing "the excellence of De Meun's admirable art, his intelligence and knowledge" (de ammirabili artificio, ingenio ac doctrina), accusing those who attack it of having read it only superficially, if at all. He compares them to "drunks discussing at the dinner table" (instar eorum qui mense inter crapulas omnia) who too quickly attack such an "important [work] that was conceived and written with the sweat and hard work of many days and nights" (opus tantum, tot diebus ac noctibus tantoque cum sudore et attentione digesta elaboratum et editum). He refers to the "respectable, satiric master Jean de Meun" (satiricum illum perseverum magistrum Johannem de Magduno) and calls him a "philosopher and poet of genius" (philosophum et poetam ingeniosissimum), while referring to Christine as "some woman, named Christine" (mulier quedam, nomine Cristina) and comparing her to the "Greek whore, who, according to Cicero, dared to write against the great philosopher Theophrastus" (grecam meretricem, ut refert Cicero, que 'contra Theofrastum, philosophum tantum, scribere ausa fuit'). Montreuil reminds Christine and other "presumptuous" writers that they are attacking a dead man who could, with one small wave of his hand, crush them if he were alive. It is obvious to Montreuil that they do not understand the satiric task of de Meun, which allowed him to touch on subjects forbidden to others. He also repeatedly questions whether they have indeed read the work at all or, if so, if they read just parts of it.
Pierre Col, canon of Paris, responds, in French, to de Meun's critics in a less volatile manner. He counters that the author created characters who speak accordingly and that their words do not express the author's opinions ("Jehan de Meung ... fait chascun personnaige parler selonc qui lui appartient"); if there are vulgar words or some that offend women, de Meun is simply citing his characters. When Christine asks why he cites them at all, Col responds that de Meun wishes to teach the guardians of the castle how to guard it better. To Christine's assertion that reading the romance would embarrass women readers, Col responds that it would only if these readers themselves were guilty of similar vices. Gerson claims the contrary: all good women should blush at such things. In her final letter, Christine concludes,
And if I do not like the Romance of the Rose, it is simply because it incites evil and is a dishonest text, which encourages evil more than good deeds; and can be, in my opinion, the cause of the damnation and downfall of those who hear it and delight in it, and because it leads to bad morals. I swear to you on my soul and my faith that no other reason motivates me. And what you said afterwards, that perhaps we condemn it in order to entice others to read it, and thus our opinion of it is good, you can be certain that that is not our goal!19
She, like Gerson, eventually decided to abandon the debate, which, they feared, was calling more attention to and interest in the work.
In Debate and Dialogue, Emily Cayley finds that while Christine's male contemporaries may have been indulging in a form of "jeu," or "play," Christine's participation in the querelle de la rose was far from playful. As proof, Cayley cites Christine's first manuscript dossier of correspondence on the subject, which omits Jean de Montreuil's letters of February 1402. She posits that when Christine circulated her version of the querelle, Montreuil withdrew from this unusual public display of what he considered a private debate. In this "thwarted dialogue," Cayley points out, Montreuil never responded directly to Christine because she "refused to play the game by his rules." Cayley also finds that Christine's choice of French, rather than the Latin in which Montreuil wrote, placed her at a disadvantage.
Christine may have abandoned the epistolary debate, but she persisted in her vernacular defense of women. In Le livre de la cité des dames (1405), she takes not only de Meun but also Ovid and other ancient authorities who attacked women, as well as medieval misogynistic works like the Lamentations de Mathéole, to task. This physician's daughter also attacks a popular medical work known as De secretis mulierum:
"I know another small book in Latin, my lady, called the Secreta mulierum, The Secrets of Women, which discusses the constitution of their [women's] natural bodies and their great defects." She [Reason] replied, "You can see for yourself without further proof, this book was written carelessly and colored by hypocrisy, for if you have looked at it, you know that it is obviously a treatise composed of lies. Although some say that it was written by Aristotle, it is not believable that such a great philosopher could be charged with such contrived lies. For since women can clearly know with proof that certain things which he treats are not at all true, but pure fabrications, they can also conclude that the other details which he handles are outright lies. But don't you remember that he says in the beginning that some pope — I don't know which one — excommunicated every man who read the work to a woman or gave it to a woman to read?" [...] "It was done so that women would not know about the book and its contents, because the man who wrote it knew that if women read it or heard it read aloud, would know it was lies, would contradict it, and make fun of it. With this pretense the author wanted to trick and deceive the men who read it."
Here, Reason lists three major critiques against De secretis mulierum. First, she finds it hard to believe that Aristotle wrote the work. While the work had been attributed, falsely, to the prolific thirteenth-century natural philosopher Albertus Magnus, Reason mentions only Aristotle, whom Lemay calls pseudo-Albertus's "favorite choice" of authorities, even when Aristotle was "peripheral to [the] discussion." Perhaps she wished to avoid questioning a Christian authority like Albertus Magnus, finding it easier to attack his pagan source. Second, Reason contrasts natural philosophy and its theories with women's personal experience. Third, even though the work was written in Latin, a language that most women did not read, Reason claims that the author wished to ensure that it would not fall into the hands of women readers, who would find its claims laughable. Indeed, in the preface, pseudo-Albertus asks his male readers to keep the work confidential: "This is a serious work, therefore I beg you not to permit any child to peruse it, nor anyone of childlike disposition. If you keep this book to yourself, I promise to show you many things about different subjects as well as the art of medicine which, God willing, I shall discuss at some length." Although women are not specifically mentioned, the message is clear: women were considered perpetual children and thought to possess a "childlike disposition." Christine appears to understand that this warning is not to protect children and women from harmful ideas or a too-explicit text but rather to keep women from reading this questionable "secret knowledge" of their own bodies and defending themselves from the misogyny in the text.
Later in the Cité Reason assures Christine that women are as intelligent as many men, but Christine responds that because of women's physical fragility, men think women are immoral: "Everyone knows that women have weak bodies, delicate and lacking in strength, and that they are naturally fearful. That is what terribly diminishes the reputation and authority of the female sex among men, for men claim that the body's imperfection brings about a diminished and poor moral character. Consequently, women are thought less worthy of praise." Reason concedes that women are physically weaker than men, but she adds that women's souls are not only as good as those that God placed in men but also identical. She then ends the work with advice to women not to fall prey to seducers who feign a potentially fatal lovesickness:
In brief, all women — whether noble, bourgeois, or lower-class — be well-informed in all things and cautious in defending your honor and chastity against your enemies! My ladies, see how these men accuse you of so many vices in everything. Make liars of them all by showing forth your virtue, and prove their attacks false by acting well, so that you can say with the Psalmist, "the vices of the evil will fall on their heads." Repel the deceptive flatterers who, using different charms, seek with various tricks to steal that which you must consummately guard, that is, your honor and the beauty of your praise. Oh, my ladies, flee, flee the foolish love they urge on you! Flee it, for God's sake, flee! For no good can come to you from it. Rather, rest assured that however deceptive their lures, their end is always to your detriment. And do not believe the contrary, for it cannot be otherwise. Remember, dear ladies, how these men call you frail, unserious, and easily influenced but yet try hard, using all kinds of strange and deceptive tricks, to catch you, just as one lays traps for wild animals. Flee, flee, my ladies, and avoid their company — under these smiles are hidden deadly and painful poisons. And so may it please you, my most respected ladies, to cultivate virtue, to flee vice, to increase and multiply our City, and to rejoice and act well.
Several points are worth noting here. Christine not only advises women to preserve their virtue under attack by certain men but also cites several aspects that echo well into the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries: the dangers of persuasive eloquence, the folly of passion, the courtly love "game," and women's fragile reputations.
Alain Chartier
Even though Alain Chartier never mentions Christine in his works, Charity Cannon Willard claims that he took up some of her ideas in his Belle dame sans mercy. Chartier's fair lady, she states, is one "whose ancestry is assuredly to be found in the pages of Christine's poetry." The beautiful lady without mercy or pity turns aside her lover's pleas in the same way that Christine suggests in the Livre de la cité des dames as well as in "L'epistre au dieu d'amours," written twenty-five years earlier. This second debate, which began around 1424 with Belle dame's publication, is often referred to as the querelle de la Belle dame sans mercy, while some see it as the beginning of the querelle des femmes. Cayley cites forty manuscripts penned by participants in the querelle de la Belle dame sans mercy. She posits that Chartier intended his ending to be read as ironic, with one moral for women and another for men, to elicit further debate:
Thus I beseech you, men in love, flee these braggarts and scandalmongers,
and call them traitors,
because they will impede your progress.
Refusal has built a fortress against them so that their words will not be taken as truth,
for they have had too much control over the land of love in recent times.
As for you, ladies and young maidens,
in whom honor is born and collected,
be not so cruel as this one,
neither individually nor collectively.
Would that none of you resemble this lady whom you will now hear me name,
and who should be called, it seems to me,
The Belle Dame Sans Mercy.
Cayley finds this "deferred judgment" and "closural ambiguity" characteristic of debate poetry of the time.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Pathologies of Love"
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