magazinelogo

Journal of Humanities, Arts and Social Science

ISSN Online: 2576-0548 Downloads: 750849 Total View: 5041120
Frequency: monthly ISSN Print: 2576-0556 CODEN: JHASAY
Email: jhass@hillpublisher.com
Article Open Access http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/jhass.2023.07.040

Discourse on Sexual Violence (Rape) in Late Medieval Short Prose Narratives: The Case of the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles, Marguerite de Navarre’s Heptaméron, and Johannes Pauli’s Schimpf und Ernst

Albrecht Classen

German Studies Department, University of Arizona, Tucson, USA.

*Corresponding author: Albrecht Classen

Published: August 24,2023

Abstract

The topic of rape or sexual violence is, unfortunately, ubiquitous in world literature. In our day and age, this crime is seriously identified as such and properly persecuted, at least in the Western world. Contrary to common assumptions, this was already the case in the pre-modern world, as much as patriarchy ruled and sexual transgressions were often addressed by poets. The issue dealt with here, however, pertains to the question of how cases of rape were discussed and eva-luated in the late Middle Ages. As significant examples in the anonymous and highly popular Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles (late fifteenth century) indicate, poets commonly dealt with sexual transgression often leading to the woman’s violation (occasionally also the man’s). The critical reading of specific cases contained in this literary collection indicates that rape was recognized as such and clearly condemned as a terrible crime. However, various poets still did not hesitate to thematize sexual harassment and also rape as topics which allowed them to ‘entertain’ their audiences, especially when the man’s attempts were defied by the female victim by means of wit, rhetorical skill, and fast thinking. Male poets such as Johannes Pauli also formulated explicit condemnation of rape.

References

Alfred Semerau. (trans.). (1907/1967). Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles. Die hundertneuen Novellen, trans. from the French by Alfred Semerau, with an afterword by Peter Amelung. Vienna: Buchgemeinschaft Donauland.

Azuela [Bernal], Cristina and Tatiana Sule, ed. and trans. (2013). La dama, el marido y los intrusos. Antología de relatos Medievales franceses de Las Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles [The Lady and the Husband, and the Transgressors. Anthology of Medieval French Tales in the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles], ed. and trans. (Mexico City: Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

Beine, Birgit. (1999). Der Wolf in der Kutte: Geistliche in den Mären des deutschen Mittelalters [The Wolf in the Habit: Clerics in the Verse Narratives from the German Middle Ages]. Braunschweiger Beiträge zur deutschen Sprache und Literatur, 2. Bielefeld: Verlag für Regionalgeschichte.

Bellitto, Christopher. (2001). Nicolas de Clamanges: Spirituality, Personal Reform, and Pastoral Renewal on the Eve of the Reformations. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press.

Bennewitz, Ingrid. (1989). Lukretia, oder: Über die literarischen Projektionen von der Macht der Männer und der Ohnmacht der Frauen: Darstellung und Bewertung von Vergewaltigung in der ‘Kaiserchronik und im “Ritter vom Thurn” [Lucretia, or: On the Literary Projection of Men’s Power and Women’s Lack of Power. Presentation and Evaluation of Rape in the Kaiserchronik and in the “Ritter vom Thurn”], Der frauwenbuoch: Versuche zu einer feministischen Mediävistik, ed. eadem. Göppinger Arbeiten zur Germanistik, 517, pp. 113−134. Göppingen: Kümmerle.

Black, Winston. (ed.). (2020). Medicine and Healing in the Premodern West: A History in Documents. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview.

Brundage, James A. (1987). Law, Sex and Christian Society in Medieval Europe. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.

Butterworth, Emily. (ed.). (2022). Marguerite de Navarre: A Critical Companion. Cambridge and Rochester, NY: D. S. Brewer.

Cahoon, Leslie. (1986). Raping the Rose: Jean de Meun’s Reading of Ovid’s Amores. Classical and Modern Literature, 6(4), 261−85.

Çakırtaş, Önder. (2019). Literature and Psychology: Writing, Trauma and the Self Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Classen, Albrecht. (2011). Sexual Violence and Rape in the Middle Ages: A Critical Discourse in Premodern German and European Literature. Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture, 7. Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter.

Classen, Albrecht. (2019/paperback 2021). Prostitution in Medieval and Early Modern Literature: The Dark Side of Sex and Love in the Premodern Era. Studies in Medieval Literature. Lanham, MA, Boulder, CO, et al.: Lexington Books.

Classen, Albrecht. (2023). Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles. The Literary Encyclopedia, online at 

https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=41299.

Dar, Ayesha. (2022). On the Relationship Between Literature and Psychology. International Journal of Applied Research in Social Sciences, 4(8), 284−92; online at: https://doi.org/10.51594/ijarss.v4i8.382.

Desmond, Marilynn. (2006). Ovid’s Art and the Wife of Bath: The Ethics of Erotic Violence. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univer-sity Press.

Devaux, Jean and Alexandra Velissariou. (ed.). (2016). Autour des “Cent nouvelles Nouvelles”: sources et rayonnements, contextes et interprétations: actes du colloque international organisé les 20 et 21 octobre 2011 à l’Université du Littoral – Côte d'Opale (Dunkerque) [On the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles: Sources and Influences, Contexts and Interpretations]. Paris: Honoré Champion éditeur.

Donaldson, Ian. (1982). The Rapes of Lucretia: A Myth and Its Transformations. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Dubuis, Roger. (1996). Lexique des Cent nouvelles Nouvelles [Lexicon of the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles]. Matériaux pour le Dictionnaire du MoyenFrançais, 3. Paris: Klincksieck.

Dykema, Peter A. and Heiko A. Oberman. (ed.). (1993). Anticlericalism in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. Studies in Medieval and Reformation Thought, 51. Leiden, New York, and Cologne: Brill.

Emerson, Catherine. (2017). Setting a Place in the Cent Nouvelles nouvelles: The Illustrations of Glasgow, Hunter 252. Relief: Revue Électronique de Littérature Francaise (June 2017); online at: 

https://doaj.org/article/bd0c394d329942fe9c43f0939e08dc72.

Emir, Badegül Can. (2016). Literature and Psychology in the Context of the Interaction of Social Sciences. Khazar Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 19(4), 49-55; online at: 

https://jhss-khazar.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/son.4._tURKEY_12.12.2016_1.pdf.

Fein, David A. (2003). Displacements of Power: Readings of the Cent nouvelles Nouvelles. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.

Ferguson, Gary and Mary B. McKinley. (ed.). (2013). A Companion to Marguerite de Navarre. Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition, 42. Leiden and Boston: Brill.

Franklin P. Sweetser. (1966). Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles, ed. Geneva: Droz.

Graeme Small. (ed.). (2023). Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles: The Cent Nouvelles nouvelles (Burgundy-Luxembourg-France, 1458-c. 1550): Text and Paratext, Codex and Context. Turnhout: Brepols.

Gravdal, Kathryn. (2010). Ravishing Maidens: Writing Rape in Medieval French Literature and Law. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun. (1962/1962). The Romance of the Rose, trans. Harry W. Robbins, ed., and with an intro. by Charles W. Dunn. New York: E. F. Dutton.

Gulley, Alison. (ed.). (2018). Teaching Rape in the Medieval Literature Classroom: Approaches to Difficult Texts. Leeds: Arc Humanities Press.

Hong, Youri. (2013). Teaching Rape Texts in Classical Literature. Classical World, 106(4), 669-87.

https://www.ieeesem.com/researchpaper/On_the_Interaction_Between_Literature_and_P.

Judith Bruskin Diner. (trans.). (1990). Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles. The One Hundred New Tales. Garland Library of Medieval Literature, Series B, 30. New York: Garland.

Labère, Nelly. (2022). To Be or Not to Be Part of the Cent nouvelles nouvelles: Representing the Obscene in Manuscript and Print. The Politics of Obscenity in the Age of the Gutenberg Revolution: Obscene Means in Early Modern French and European Print Culture and Literature. Routledge Research in Early Modern History, pp. 119-38. New York and London: Routledge.

Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles. La Ciennuevas Nouvelles [The Hundred New Novellas]. (2016). Estudio introductorio de Cristina Azuela Bernal (Mexico City: Facultad de Filosofía y Letras FFyL) [UNAM].

Manda, Charles B. (2019). Re-Authoring Life Narratives After Trauma: A Holistic Narrative Model of Care. HTS Reli-gion &SocietySeries, 5. Durbanville, Cape Town: AOSIS.

Marguerite de Navarre. (1894). The Tales of the Heptameron of Margaret, Queen of Navarre, trans. M. Le Roux de Lincy. 5 vols. London: Printed for the Society of English Bibliophilists; online at: 

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/17701/17701-h/17701-h.htm#link2H_4_0016.

Maria Dobozy. (trans.). (n.d.). The Saxon Mirror: A Sachsenspiegel of the Fourteenth Century, trans. Maria Dobozy. The Middle Ages Series. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Montaiglion, Anatole de and Gaston Raynaud. (ed.). (1872/1973). Recueil general et complet des fabliaux [Comprehensive and Complete Collection of fabliaux]. 6 vols. (Paris: Société des Bibliophiles français. Geneva: Slatkine).

Murphy, John W., Berkeley A. Franz, Jung Min Choi, and Karen A. Callaghan. (2017). Narrative Medicine and Commu-nity-Based Health Care and Planning. Cham: Springer.

Pauli, Johannes. (1924/1972). Schimpf und Ernst, ed. Johannes Bolte. Vol. 1. Hildesheim and New York: Georg Olms.

Pierre Champion. (1885/1977). Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles, ed. Documents artistiques du XVe siècle, 5. Paris: Garnier.

Rabinowitz, Nancy Sorkin and Fiona McHardy. (ed.). (2014). From Abortion to Pederasty: Addressing Difficult Topics in the Classics Classroom. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press.

Rittner, Carol and John K. Roth. (ed.). (2016). Teaching About Rape in War and Genocide. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Robert B. Douglas. (trans.). (1899). Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles. One Hundred Merrie and Delightsome Stories. Paris: Charles Carrington; online at: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/18575/18575-h/18575-h.htm

Roberts, Anna. (ed.). (1998). Violence Against Women in Medieval Texts. Gainesville, Tallahassee, FL: University Press of Florida.

Robertson, Elizabeth and Christine M. Rose. (ed.). (2014). Representing Rape in Medieval and Early Modern Literature, ed. The New Middle Ages. New York and London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Roger Dubuis. (1991). Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles, ed. Lyon: Presses Universitaires de Lyon.

Scaglioso, Carolina M. (2022). Transits in Oncology: A Protocol Study for a Therapy-Educational Training Built-In Intervention. Humanities, 11(6.136), online at: https://doi.org/10.3390/h11060136.

Staf, Irina. (2022). La Nouvelle et la chroniqueurbaine au MoyenÂgetardif: Franco Sacchetti et Philippe de Vigneulles [The Late Medieval Novella and Urban Chronicle: Franco Sacchetti and Philippe de Vigneulles]. Littérature ur-baine: Donnée culturelle médiévale ou concept de l'histoire littéraire? ed. Ludmilla Evdokimova and Françoise Laurent, pp. 105-20. Paris: Éditions Classiques Garnier.

Yimer, Daniel M. (2022). On the Interaction Between Literature and Psychology. IEEESEM, 7(1); online at: 

https://www.ieeesem.com/researchpaper/On_the_Interaction_Between_Literature_and_Psychology.pdf.

How to cite this paper

Discourse on Sexual Violence (Rape) in Late Medieval Short Prose Narratives: The Case of the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles, Marguerite de Navarre's Heptaméron, and Johannes Pauli's Schimpf und Ernst

How to cite this paper: Albrecht Classen. (2023) Discourse on Sexual Violence (Rape) in Late Medieval Short Prose Narratives: The Case of the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles, Marguerite de Navarre's Heptaméron, and Johannes Pauli's Schimpf und ErnstJournal of Humanities, Arts and Social Science7(7), 1460-1473.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/jhass.2023.07.040