Kiss my Relics: Hermaphroditic Fictions of the Middle Ages (review)

Tracing the concept of the hermaphroditic in Martianus Capella's De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii, Alan of Lille's De planctu naturae, and the Roman de la rose, David Rollo demonstrates with brio the imbrication of sexuality and writing in medieval clerical culture. Hermaphroditus, the progeny of love and rhetoric, represents the seductive temptations of pagan writing, symbolized by Venus in William of Malmesbury's anecdote of the statue and the ring, which forms a thread throughout Rollo's book. However, Remigius of Auxerre's commentary on Martianus implies that Venus is the true creative force behind the tale of Mercury and Philology (reason and rhetoric), producing the fabula or integument that enables philosophical speculation to be communicated pleasurably (prodesse et delectare). This dual-purpose hermaphroditic writing is exemplified by Alan of Lille's prosimetrum. In it, Nature rails against those humans who misuse their God-given reproductive organs, especially homosexuals, who were viewed by contemporaries as 'effeminate' men, hence hermaphrodites, and she links improper sexual practices metaphorically with deviant speech, the prime example of which is the figurative. In exuberantly employing 'venereal discourse' throughout, Alan deliberately characterizes himself as the very thing Nature abhors: a falsigrapher or queer writer who revels in tropes and, according to Rollo, indulges in homosexual grammatical practices (although one wonders how anyone wishing to make themselves understood in Latin could avoid gender agreements between adjectives and nouns). Jean de Meun's debt to Alan is deftly illustrated in the chapters on the Rose, which remind us that vernacular clerical writing is most fruitfully considered within its Latin context. Rollo gives a sustained, homoerotic reading of the Rose (even Guillaume's part), while constantly acknowledging that an equally valid heterosexual reading is possible, and he rightly concludes that the gender of the object of desire is deliberately ambiguous. Thus, with his customary wit, Rollo puns on the name of the hermaphroditic Bel Accueil, suggesting that s/he may be a 'bele a couilles', offering something for everyone. Nevertheless, his readings are primarily masculine, and female readers might object that Bel Accueil is as much a 'femina vir facta' as Alan's 'femina vir factus' and might wonder if they are included in Rollo's categorization of all critics of the Rose as castrates (p. 218) — which women may be, but not necessarily as a punishment for misreading! One could quibble over tendentious readings/translations, an incomplete bibliography (where are the items cited on page 60, note 10?), no consideration given to textual variants, and an 'improper' discussion of the Pardoner's Tale in the guise of a conclusion. But these are outweighed by brilliant close readings, ever alert to linguistic polysemy. Although, in taking the analogies so beloved of his writers to their logical conclusions, Rollo could be accused of systematic reductio ad absurdum, of imposing a straitjacket on multilevel allegory, the rhetorical pyrotechnics and speculative philosophy of this master of hermaphroditic writing produce both enlightenment and huge pleasure in/for his hermaphroditic readers.