Obscenity: Social Control and Artistic Creation in the European Middle Ages (review)

Obscenity: Social Control and Artistic Creation in the European Middle Ages. Edited by Jan M. Ziolkowski. Cultures, Beliefs and Traditions: Medieval and Early Modern Periods. Leiden-Boston-Köln: Brill, 1998. x + 359 pp.

Over four decades ago, while I was serving, initially, as a member of the U.S. Army of Occupation and, subsequently, as a "guest of the German Federal Republic," the following took place in the Herzogenaurach enlisted men's mess. A fellow soldier, about to leave for two weeks of furlough Stateside, was looking forward to Thanksgiving with his family. We were happy for him, but a corporal at our table was worried. We all used the participial adjective "mother-fucking" as a matter of course, prepositively, so to speak. It was as inevitable as our use of the definite article, in fact it probably helped establish our group identity. (Curiously, our Polish guard friends, who aped our "mother-fucking" perfectly, mastering all the expressive nuances we used, were hopeless in regard to the English definite article; they regularly stuck one in where it did not belong, or they failed to use it when it was required.) The corporal was afraid that when our buddy sat down to Thanksgiving dinner , he would blurt out: "Hey Mom, would you please pass the mother-fucking butter?" We agreed that this worry had substance, so we spent the evening drilling our homeward-bound friend, making him practice a speech free of "mother-fucking" (and other gros mots).

Perusing the volume under review here reminded me of this experience. For example, in Part i of the Old French (OFr.) Roman de la Rose (ca. 1230)--the 4000-odd lines attributed to Guillaume de Lorris--a lady named Raison finds Amant despairing at his friend Bel Acueil's imprisonment. She is described as neither young or old, neither too tall or too short, and neither fat or thin; she carries herself in a stately manner and wears a crown. She looks as though she hails from Paradise; her eyes shine (ed. Langlois, vv. 2971-88). She claims to be the mother of Honte (Shame), in v. 3028, which would, of course, make her no longer a maiden. She seeks to convince Amant that he abandon his quest for the Rose. Citing a host of authorities and historical examples, she "proves" that Amant is indulging in foolishness. She is passionately . . . reasonable, and, not surprisingly, Amant takes her speeches to be preacherly hectoring.

Amant finds himself once again despairing at the start of Rose ii (the lengthy Continuation attributed to Jean de Meun [ca. 1270]); he reproaches himself for not having heeded Raison's counsel. She, now described as "la bele, l'avenant" (v. 4226), reappears. She insinuates to him that Amors has been an unworthy lord and suggests that he renounce his fealty. He addresses her respectfully as Dame. The rhetorical setup here thus differs somewhat from that obtaining in Guillaume's Part i. Explaining what passes for love, Raison furnishes a Rabelaisian listing of oxymora (loyal disloyalty, sweet peril, reasonable madness, etc.). In point of fact, however, love, she declares, is no other than a God-given sexual drive which serves to reproduce the human species. Raison echoes the rustic usage of many oïl dialects. Ameur 'rutting, to be in heat' fr. Lat. Amor(em) constitutes the "normal" phonetic evolution of Lat. "ór" in French. (Modern Fr. amour is probably a Provençalism, borrowed into elegant French by courtly society and poets.) Meanwhile, nothing humanly transcendent characterizes love; never, pace St. Bernard of Clairvaux, does Raison evince interest in how the erotic permits our grasping the mystery of God's charity.

It is in the midst of her very extended speech that Raison introduces a word much commented upon in a number of the papers included in the volume under review--a kind of locus classicus: "Joustice, qui jadis regnot, / Ou tens...