Queer (Re)Readings in the French Renaissance: Homosexuality, Gender, Culture (review)

Similar to the reappropriation of the pejorative name gueux ('beggars') by the league of noblemen in the Low Countries in 1566 transforming it into a proud party title, the originally offensive term 'queer' is nowadays used with pride (yet not uncontested) by people who are homosexual, bisexual, transgender etc. As a sociological umbrella term, it entered the academic world and 'queer studies' began to appear. In the Anglo-Saxon world, the term 'queer theory' refers to a critical theory (following the footsteps of Michel Foucault) in which the validity and consistency of heteronormative discourse are challenged, focusing on non-heteronormative sexuality. In this combination, 'queer' refers less to a fixed sexual identity than to an ongoing critique of any identity. Queer reading or rereading of historical texts (religious, poetic, medical, legal, etc.) is thus firmly rooted in general deconstructionist literary criticism. In the present volume, the field of queer studies is enriched with six erudite essays by Gary Ferguson (Professor of French, University of Delaware), queerly (re)reading a number of French Renaissance texts. Ferguson opts for a historiographical, non-ideological approach. He focuses on textual moments that appear queer to the modern reader, 'allowing their disturbing potential to unfold rather than seeking to explain it away' (p. 51) and tries to contextualize the queer, i.e. to assess whether what appears queer to the modern reader produced a similar reaction to the original reader. The awkward relationship of Renaissance authors to queer elements of ancient Greece and Rome, and the more recent Italian past, is taken into account as well. According to Ferguson, queer historical reading requires that the reader not only pays attention 'to what is said in the texts studied, but also to what seems to be omitted, suppressed, or (auto-)censored, to the non-dit, the elliptical, to what might be suggested, expressed indirectly or through language that is coded' (p. 52). After a thorough introduction in the matter, the Italian stigma of homosexuality is highlighted in Chapter 1, sketching the way Boccaccio's scabrous novella about Pietro di Vinciolo is transmitted, translated and transformed in several French paraphrases. Next to the omnipresent classics, sixteenth-century fashion and court etiquette is taken into account: Chapter 2 deals with hairstyles, hats, beards and cod-pieces (with illustrations, including the portrait of the marquis de Saint-Mégrin, also on the cover) and Chapter 3 reassesses the relationship between Henry III of France and his mignons, rereading appraising and satirical texts. In Chapter 4, some of Montaigne's essays on friendship and human affective relationships are cautiously read from a queer perspective. Chapter 5 is an exercise in the way classical texts about hermaphrodites, androgynes (Plato) were received, perceived and interpreted in the sixteenth century, mainly focusing on female sexuality. In Chapter 6, the homoerotic within religious devotion is examined (among others a letter of François de Sales), putting pressure on those passages in which highly emotional language is used. The six in-depth soundings in this book open many an unexpected perspective, inviting the reader to reconsider questions of homosexuality, gender and culture in Renaissance France.