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Tuesday, April 18, 2017 - 17:10
One of Alpennia's biggest fans, Shira Glassman (whose own novels are delightful fluffy stories about Jewish lesbian princesses and such) has commissioned some promo art featuring Barbara & Margerit and Antuniet & Jeanne. Check out the art on her tumblr--it's gorgeous!
Also, I got an email about a short story acceptance today, about which I'll say more when the contract is officially signed.
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Tuesday, April 18, 2017 - 09:45
I have no idea what the occasion is or how long it will last, but Amazon currently has the paperback version of The Mystic Marriage on sale for $7.00 (less than the usual e-book price).
Major category:
PromotionPublications:
The Mystic MarriageMonday, April 17, 2017 - 07:00
I'm always delighted to have evidence that people are using the LHMP blog as a resource as intended. (I had high hopes that it might spark interest in more people writing lesbian historical fiction--perhaps some day it will.) I received a note this past week from a teacher who had bookmarked an item on my now-deleted LiveJournal version that he wanted to assign as class reading. You can't imagine how that warms the heart! I supplied a longer list of blog links relevant to the class topic (but also suggested one or two of my source texts that might be a better assignment for that purpose). If you've ever had the passing thought, "Gee I wonder if the LHMP has anything relevant to Topic X?" and haven't been able to answer the question from your own search of the material, please always feel free to ask directly. (I'll let you know if it's outside my knowledge or is more extensive than I have time to answer.)
Major category:
LHMPFull citation:
Mills, Robert. 2015. Seeing Sodomy in the Middle Ages. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago. ISBN 978-0-226-16912-5
Publication summary:
This is an in-depth study of the visual cues and visual representations of the concept of “sodomy” in medieval manuscripts and art, using the definition of that concept at the time, not the more specific modern sense. Mills looks at how gender and sexuality interact and challenges the perception that there was no coherent framework for understanding gender and sexual dissidence in the middle ages. The topics covered include images associated with the label “sodomite”, gender transformations and sex changes (especially in Ovid), and sexual relations in closed communities (such as religious houses). The analysis includes a consideration of the relevance of modern categories to the study of medieval culture.
Chapter 4 The Sex Lives of Monks
Because monasticism is assumed to preclude sex, historians often work to desexualize passionate language used by medieval monastic writers, for example, in the context of writing about friendship. Language and actions that could be interpreted erotically are depicted as purely conventional, for example, possible interpretations of kissing on the mouth. Historians may claim that the erotic implications of the texts are “projected” by modern minds onto a “less erotically pre-occupied society.” The “passionate” aspect of passionate friendship is treated as conventional expressions of the genre and not as genuine emotion.
Mills agrees that we shouldn’t view the language as arising out of a heterosexual/homosexual binary, but neither was the division between word and act necessarily that clear cut. He suggests we shouldn’t privilege genital activity as the only form of erotic desire that “counts as sexuality.” [Note: This is a concern I raised repeatedly when covering Faderman 1981.]
Both anti-clerical satires and internal church auditors attributed active sexuality to monks. The 11th century saw programs of “moral and religious revitalization” (e.g., the Gregorian reforms) that, among other things, attempted to restore original ideals of clerical celibacy. This included rules against marriage and concubinage among the clergy and monastics (of both genders). Close (passionate) friendships were also considered suspect. Mills examines these movements, not in terms of physical intimacy, but of a struggle between maintaining and failing to maintain chastity.
Saints’ lives that focused on erotic elements could produce a “counter-erotic” rather than a non-erotic response in readers. That is, an intensification of desire through the denial of that desire. Rather than ignoring the potential for pleasure (erotic or non-erotic), the stories display a pursuit of the pleasures of frustration, refusal, and pain. That is: asceticism is a type of sensual gratification on its own. (Mills has a lot of fun with word play in this chapter, e.g., coming up with the term “cloistrophobia”.)
Ascetic practices were often seen as a response to, and control of, the experience of erotic desire. They often contributed to clerical misogyny by framing temptation as female. That is, temptation is personified as an assertive and sexually voracious woman. But at the same time, other writers such as Bernard of Clairvaux presented physical love as a “translation” exercise for understanding divine love, as in the Song of Songs. Mills compares this with Boswell’s discussion of how medieval writers used Classical models of friendship to discuss same-sex (male) desire in a way that could bypass moral stigma. This type of “translation” provided a context for representing and examining same-sex desire in a monastic context.
The next part of the chapter discusses a series of sculptures at the monastic church of Vézeley in France, added when it was rebuilt in the 1220-1230s. Local legend rumored it to be the burial site of Mary Magdalene, a symbol of change and penitence. This story may have been useful to the church in attracting visits from pilgrims on the road to Compostela. [Note: I find this claim a bit odd given how far Vézeley is from Spain, but I haven't double-checked against the regular pilgrim routes coming, e.g., from Germany.]
Despite the association with Mary Magdalene, the only female saint represented in the series of sculptures on the capitals in the nave is Eugenia, one of the genre of “transvestite saints”. [As a brief background: there are a number of legends of female saints set in the early Christian period in which a woman disguises herself as a man to take up a monastic life, sometimes enduring accusations of (male) unchastity, sometimes only revealed after death. See the "transvestite saint" tag for more entries on this topic.]
Eugenia is said to have lived in the 2nd century in Alexandria and disguised herself as a man in order to enter a monastery to live a religious life, against the wishes of her father, a local judge. As a monk, she attracted the desire of a wealthy widow who came to Eugenia for healing. Spurned, the widow accused Eugenia of rape and brought her to trial before Eugenia’s father. During the trial, Eugenia revealed her gender as proof of her innocence. This action inspired others to convert to Christianity.
Attitudes toward cross-dressing could be mixed. The transvestite saints often began their disguise in one of the contexts where writers such as Hildegard of Bingen (reluctantly) condoned it, e.g., to escape danger or preserve chastity. When done in the service of chastity, cross-dressing wasn’t considered transgressive. (In many of the transvestite saint legends, the initial disguise is to escape an unwanted suitor/marriage.)
Images of Eugenia rarely focus on the cross-dressing aspects, but those that do may show a tonsured figure baring a breast. The sculpture at Vézeley is one such rare case. It shows a short-haired, tonsured figure in the act of being about to open the top of their robe, positioned between the figures of the judge and the accuser, who are depicted with clear signifiers of male and female gender respectively. In this case, we have only the potential for Eugenia to show a bare breast. Other female sculptures at Vézeley do show bare breasts: a depiction of Eve, a woman being molested by a demon, and a figure representing Lust. So elsewhere we see bared breasts associated with sin and lust, while Eugenia is shown just before the exposure, possibly representing her rejection of desire and embrace of chastity.
As noted earlier, in men, effeminacy could be seen as representing carnality and worldliness, whereas women are seen as more “perfect” and virtuous the more they reject female roles of wife and mother. Faith and virtue and even chastity are depicted as inherently “virile” characteristics. Women must “become men” to achieve spiritual perfection. In the story of Eugenia, the widow Melantia represents inappropriate desire, not only in desiring at all, but (as an older woman) in desiring a person whom she believes to be a youth, and in desiring a monk at all, but also in desiring someone who in reality is a woman. In representing Melantia as having these inappropriate desire, the monks viewing the sculpture may have been intended to turn away from not only the superficial form of the desire (male/female) but the substance of the object (someone appearing to be a young male monk).
The depiction on another nave capital at Vézeley of the abduction of Ganymede by an eagle (Zeus) is less obviously of Christian significance, although medieval depictions of this episode are not uncommon. [Mills has an extended discussion of the context in which young boys entered monasteries, and of examples of homoerotic poetry written by monks. I skip over it only because of the lack of relevance to the current project.] Mills compares the sequence and arrangement of the Vézeley capitals to the sequential illustrations of the Bibles Moralisés, particularly in how the eye is led to make multiple comparisons and connections between them. The chapter concludes with further discussion of age-difference erotics both in the monastic and secular realms in the middle ages, and how the theme of clerical pederasty has continued as both a preoccupation and a reality though the centuries into modern times.
Event / person:
Sunday, April 16, 2017 - 12:40
See my annotations of the 2016 Tomato Review now that I have all the plants correctly identified. The varietal tags were hidden under the foliage when I was trying to figure out which was which. This year I'll I'll do better. I selected a handful of varieties that had performed well last year, and then figured I'd try a number of new ones. (Also: my usual nursery tends to have a lot of varieties, but not necessarily the same ones every year, except for favorites.)
Based on last year's experience with the black-purple varieties, I mostly avoided them, only picking Cherokee Purple because I found the taste "interesting". I'm going with a mix of 6 cherry-type tomatoes (which tend to work well for my work lunches), 6 "solid performers" to use for sauce and drying, and 6 experimental slots. Rather than organizing them by color this time, I'm going to put the cherry types at the outside ends of the rows for easier picking and then organize the rest based on expected size to pair sprawlers with more compact plants. So here are the plants I picked up. I'll add a planting chart at the end for later reference.
Cherry-type
Sun Gold - This was far and away my favorite from last year. An absolute must.
Austin's Red Pear - I didn't see a yellow pear, and besides which I found it a bit bland. So this is a new one to try.
Juliet - Red, oval.
Early Girl - Another repeat from last year, chosen largely on the promise of "early" producing. My notes indicate it had great flavor, too.
Blush Artisan - Described as "Elongaged, striped yellow bicolor cherry tomato." I do like a bit of color variety, so this will be a useful experiment.
Husky Cherry Red - A generic round red cherry.
Solid Standards and Paste Types
Mortgage Lifter - A repeat from last year (although of one of the ones where I got confused on identity).
Cherokee Purple - The only of the purple/black varieties I really thought worth repeated from last year.
Bush Beefsteak - Your basic big meaty slicing tomato
Little Napoli - A Roma style, very compact.
Amish Paste - Teardrop shaped, ideal for sauce.
Giuseppi's Big Boy - Large meaty fruit. Sprawling plant. Will pair with a compact one.
Just for Fun and Experimentation
Stupice - Heirloom, early producer, relatively compact.
Pink Boar - "Striking looks, outrageous flavor that is sweet, rich and juicy...agressive grower...port wine color with metalic silver green stripes, dark red interior." Sounds intriguing.
Marianna's Peace - "Considered by many to be the world's best tasting tomato! From Czechoslovakia, beefsteak type."
Red Lightning - Red with yellow stripes. Bought purely on curiosity of the appearance.
Big Rainbow - "Heirloom, huge yellow tomatoes with red streaks in flesh and skin."
Momotaro - A Japanese variety with pink flesh. I believe I've seen this in local markets and liked them.
Layout
Using last year's numbering system (except I have a full 18 plants this time) here's how I'll be laying them out:
1. Amish Paste
2. Bush Beefsteak
3. Cherry
4. Big Rainbow
5. Red Lightning
6. Early Girl
7. Momotaro
8. Marianna's Peace
9. Juliet
10. Cherokee Purple
11. Mortgage Lifter
12. Austin's Red Pear
13. Stupice
14. Pink Boar
15. Blush Artisan
16. Giuseppi's Big Boy
17. Little Napoli
18. Sun Gold
Check back in 4-6 months for the reviews!
Monday, April 10, 2017 - 07:00
I've had several long-weekend events lately that have interfered with getting blogs up, but in this case it gave me enough slack time to get the rest of Mill's book written up. There are three more chapters in the can after this one, although some of them are rather thin and I may accelerate the posting schedule if I get more material written up to follow.
I love how Mills brings together a number of themes regarding the connections that can and cannot be made between modern understandings of gender and sexuality and historical ones. As with many sociological fields, there's too much of a temptation to believe we make regular linear progress in our understanding of gender and sexuality. That the understanding-of-the-moment is inherently "better" somehow than all previous understandings. Much harder to accept--even when it's part of the theoretical underpinnings--that all understandings are subjective and both enabled and constrained by the models and stories available to us.
A search for clear mappings and connections in history may feel validating, but it can erase the lived experience of people in the past, whose understanding of their own lives should be respected--even if that understanding includes what we consider a false belief in the sinfulness of their actions. Who are we to decide that historic person X was "really a closted homosexual" if their worldview didn't include such concepts? But I always feel deeply uncomfortable with the "strong Foucaultian" position that there are no conceptual connections between modern people's understanding of their genders and sexualities and those of people in history. And I'm especially uncomfortable with the way the Foucaultian position feels like it targets non-normative genders and sexualities exclusively. One may pay lip service to "well, after all, heterosexuality is a modern invention too" but the consequences of such an acknowledgement (and its potential to affect modern people's lives and self-images) are much smaller.
I'm comforted by seeing historians like Mills find a messier, more nuanced path through the tangle.
Major category:
LHMPFull citation:
Mills, Robert. 2015. Seeing Sodomy in the Middle Ages. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago. ISBN 978-0-226-16912-5
Publication summary:
This is an in-depth study of the visual cues and visual representations of the concept of “sodomy” in medieval manuscripts and art, using the definition of that concept at the time, not the more specific modern sense. Mills looks at how gender and sexuality interact and challenges the perception that there was no coherent framework for understanding gender and sexual dissidence in the middle ages. The topics covered include images associated with the label “sodomite”, gender transformations and sex changes (especially in Ovid), and sexual relations in closed communities (such as religious houses). The analysis includes a consideration of the relevance of modern categories to the study of medieval culture.
Chapter 3 The First Sodomite
Several chapters in this book focus, such as this one, fairly exclusively on male-related topics. I haven't summarized them in nearly as much detail as the ones relevant to women.
[The following is duplicated from the associated blog. I'm trying to standardize the organization of associated content.]
I love how Mills brings together a number of themes regarding the connections that can and cannot be made between modern understandings of gender and sexuality and historical ones. As with many sociological fields, there's too much of a temptation to believe we make regular linear progress in our understanding of gender and sexuality. That the understanding-of-the-moment is inherently "better" somehow than all previous understandings. Much harder to accept--even when it's part of the theoretical underpinnings--that all understandings are subjective and both enabled and constrained by the models and stories available to us.
A search for clear mappings and connections in history may feel validating, but it can erase the lived experience of people in the past, whose understanding of their own lives should be respected--even if that understanding includes what we consider a false belief in the sinfulness of their actions. Who are we to decide that historic person X was "really a closted homosexual" if their worldview didn't include such concepts? But I always feel deeply uncomfortable with the "strong Foucaultian" position that there are no conceptual connections between modern people's understanding of their genders and sexualities and those of people in history. And I'm especially uncomfortable with the way the Foucaultian position feels like it targets non-normative genders and sexualities exclusively. One may pay lip service to "well, after all, heterosexuality is a modern invention too" but the consequences of such an acknowledgement (and its potential to affect modern people's lives and self-images) are much smaller.
I'm comforted by seeing historians like Mills find a messier, more nuanced path through the tangle.
# # #
Another story appearing in the “moralized Ovid” manuscripts is that of Orpheus. Orpheus is relevant to the topic of the book via a version of the story in which, after losing Eurydice, he turns away from women to love boys. [As a brief summary for those not familiar with Orpheus: after his girlfriend Eurydice dies, he goes down to the underworld to plead for her return and his singing is so sweet and powerful that Hades agrees, provided he leads her out of the underworld without looking back at her. Just as they’re about to emerge into the mortal world, he looks back and she is lost to him forever. Later he takes up with maenads--rampaging wild women--who eventually tear him to pieces.]
Medieval imagery of Orpheus with his lyre (or harp) was often confused and conflated him with David (also symbolized with a harp) and with Christ. In the moralized Ovid, Orpheus’s turning away from women is equated with turning away from sin. Peculiarly enough, this means that his love of boys maps to a love of God, hence the imagery lacks some of the expected negative framing. But there are other symbolic resonances that led to viewing Orpheus as a sodomite. Music and poetry could be considered “unmanly” activities, and Orpheus’s ability to tame wild beasts was considered “against nature.”
The act of turning back (to look at Eurydice) is sometimes connected with Lot’s wife turning back to look at Sodom (leading to her conversion to a pillar of salt). Symbolically this turning/looking back is considered to represent a return to an unsaved state. The next chapter looks more at this motif of “turning”.
In the mean time, the discussion of Orpheus in the illustrated moralized texts offers a lot of examples of depictions of erotic affection between men.
Time period:
Place:
Wednesday, April 5, 2017 - 07:00
When Abiel suggests to the folks back home that they will need to get out the atlas to follow along with his adventure, he isn't kidding. I had the benefit of Google Maps. I really do want to put together some maps to accompany these entries--I want to do so many things. This sort of "micro history" is so great for having an understanding of the past, and it makes it all the more of a crime that the histories of many groups of people have been suppressed, erased, or deliberately destroyed. Reading about troop movements is one thing. It's another thing to read about the emotional reactions of camp inhabitants to the reinstatement of a popular, charismatic commander who they believe is being jerked around for political reasons. That makes you understand why one commander can get his men to go all out for him, while another fails because his men have no confidence in him.
This finishes the "catch up" entries from circling back to the start of the diaries. If you've lost track, the original blog entries starting in January 1863 are here, because after this I'm going to jump ahead and pick up again in January 1865. And it's probably time to start getting these visible on the website at heatherrosejones.com as well.
The Diary and Letters of Abiel Teple LaForge 1842-1878
October - December 1863
Transcribed, edited, and annotated by Phyllis G. Jones (his great-granddaughter)
Copyright © 1993, Phyllis G. Jones, All rights reserved
[PUNCTUATION AND SPELLING ARE COPIED FROM THE ORIGINALS. EDITORIAL COMMENTS ARE IN BOLD TYPE.]
1863 Contents
- January 11, 1863
- January 26, 1863
- February 15, 1863 - The Wonderful "Care Package"
- March 2, 1863
- March 20, 1863
- April 30, 1863
- May 27, 1863
- June 26, 1863
- August 3, 1863
- August 25, 1863
- September 24, 1863 - A Night at Ford's Theater
- October 20, 1863
- October 30, 1863
- December 10, 1863 - Transporting Prisoners to Washington and Some Sightseeing
LETTER (WRITTEN ON PAPER WITH PICTURE OF FLAG WITH 34 STARS)
Head Quarters, Convalescent Camp October 20th 1863
Dear Friends,
I write to let you know I am coming off with flying colors, as you can see above. Some style about that flag ain't there? True "Union"!
I was over to Washington today, having a most splendid dinner at the "Lutz Hotel" on the european style, three bottles of wine to "finish up" with. You must not think by that that any of us were tight, for that kind of table wine does not inebriate. We returned before sundown all sober, if not honest--
We have had one or two Virginia rains, just to show us winter was at hand. I cannot help remarking how very fast this ground dries after the most protracted rain. As soon as it clears up, and the sun shows his smiling face, the earth is charmed into such good nature that it is unable to remain muddy and disagreeable if it would. So a virtue is made of a necessity and all marks of a storm are smothed away as soon as possible.
We are talking some of building barracks for four thousand more men. I hope we shall, for they do not cost as much as tents, and for a permanent camp like this are much better. A barrack can be built to accomodate 108 men for less than three hundred dollars. And "Sibley tents" for the same number would cost more than four hundred dollars. Besides, the buildings will last twice as long.
Oh! Sister, I was highly complimented by one of General Hentzelman's staff officers the other day. Major Willard, former proprietor of "Willards Hotel" was to take 374 men from this camp to Fort Monroe Virginia. [Note: I don't know from context and an initial search whether this is the famous Willard's Hotel in Washington, or something more modest named in allusion to it. "Former proprietor" and the use of scare-quotes suggest the possibility of the latter.] We were to send the men. He would meet them there with a boat at precisely 8 O.C. A.M. He is one of those fussy old fellows and was very much afraid they would not be there on time. Captain Crawford (then in charge) pledged him his word they would, and then told me he would leave the fullfilment of his word to me, and said he wanted the old major pleased once.
So I got the men nearly ready the night before, and was up at four the next morning and finished. And getting a horse, started with them early. I marched down to the dock (four miles) and had them drawn up in line and all arranged to march on board ten minutes before the boat came. As soon as she did come and rounded to at the wharf, I put the men in motion and went right aboard. I could see at once the major was satisfied. When all were aboard, he took me into the cabin and asked me what my name was. I told him Sergeant LaForge. (I am an acting sergeant now.) He put it down in his book and said he must write a letter about that. Then just as they were starting off, he came to the side of the boat, before I got on my horse, and bade me tell Captain Crawford that nothing could be more prompt than I was with the men. I galloped back to camp feeling as big as,- as,- (not ass) a hundred and thirty pounds of humanity could well feel.
I get no more pay for acting as sergeant. I merely wear the pants stripe, so that the sergeant who may be in a squad which I have charge of will not be able to rank me and object to obeying my orders.
I sent $15 dollars by express. Have you got it yet? Perry will give you a note for it Susan, and when he does, I wish you would send me copies of them all. I mean a copy of each seperate, not signed, but all the rest same as the originals. [Note: I'm always fascinated by the details of everyday finance in these lives. Small loans are constantly going back and forth, secured by nothing but pieces of paper, good will, and community reputation.]
How is Charley? Give him my love. Tell mother, if I was up there I would kiss her, and then we would set down in the corner and have a good old time smoking. My best wishes to Joseph and Perry. I would like to help them dig potatoes this fall. [Note: Interesting implication that Mrs. Potter ("mother") smokes. I'm fairly certain that this woudn't be acceptable in high society, and it makes me wonder about other differences in gendered behavior between town and country.]
I am glad Janey can give so good a report of her enjoyment on her visit. Mrs. P[otter] must leave you a place to write on every time, and if it is not filled up you will get awfully talked to when I get home. My kind regards to Mrs. S.A.Potter. Kiss Mattie for me and cut up all the other tricks you are a mind to, only remember to love your soldier brother.
A. T. LaForge
P.S. The letter you enclosed to me was from W. M. Hibbard, Company Y, 82nd New York, a discharged soldier now. He is an old friend of mine.
LETTER
Head Quarters Convalescent Camp, Virginia October 30th 1863
Dear Sister,
I have succeeded in getting a furlough for Perry Wells, and take advantage of it to send you some things to preserve for me. I wish when he returns you would send me two good pair of woolen stockings, and a long letter. Also my "French Dictionary." And if you could, I should like to have you send me a heap of love also. It is so much better to have someone say it to you, than to have it written. We are sending about a thousand men home to vote, however Perry would not have been one of them if it had not been for me. And I assure you nothing could give me more pleasure than it does to send an old friend like him home to see his friends. I have lots of work tonight, so I can write but a short letter, but it contains much love from,
Your brother
A. T. LaForge
[Note: This is another interesting facet of everyday economics. It was certainly possible to send packages by freight--as we've seen before with the food packages--but there are other references to things going missing in transit. How common might it have been to ship incidentals under the care of a traveler instead?]
LETTER
Head Quarters Convalescent Camp December 10th 1863
Dear Sister,
I this moment received yours of Dec. 7th, and as you may see by this, only waited to read its threatening contents before I hasten to answer it.
None of your surmises prove to be correct. I have not been sick, nor have I forgotten my obligations to my friends way up in Andover, but I have a story to write. Since my last to you, I have been quite an extensive traveler. [Note: It is perhaps worth rememberin in the following description that Convalescent Camp housed recovering soldiers from a vast number of different units. When Abiel escorts groups of men from the camp, in some cases it appears to be a new assignment, as in "hey, we need X number of men in location Y," but in this case it appears to be a matter of returning a large number of men to an assortment of original units. Hence dropping off a few here and a few there along the way.]
November 23rd I was ordered to take charge of a squad of 60 (sixty) men and proceed with them to the respective destinations which were given in my written instructions. So early in the morning I went over to Washington to get my transportation. The men were brought over to me in the afternoon by one of the orderlies. I started at 6 O.C. P.M. on the cars for Baltimore. I had to stay all night in Baltimore and left three men there to go to Fort McHenry. Also 5 men to go to Carlisle Barracks Pennsylvania. The rest I took on the cars with me to Philadelphia. At Philadelphia we had to change cars and all of us reached from one end of the city to the other in the street cars. [Note: Several times in this letter, Abiel uses "cars" by itself in a context that suggests "railroad cars." E.g., talking about "taking the cars" where we might expect "taking the train." But elsewhere as here he either states or implies streetcars. I haven't tried to clarify, but generally the sense can be gotten from context. Of course, the one thing he can't possibly mean is "automobiles," so there's a bit of whiplash for the modern reader.]
We arrived at New York City about eleven O.C. I took my men to the State Soldiers home on Howard Street and stayed all night. (By the way, before you read any farther you had better get my "Atlas" and follow me. [Note: I'm often tempted to do this myself!]) Next morning they gave me the big ambulance that belongs to the Home (it will hold 20 men) to take my men that were to be left at New York down to the Quartermasters on State Street. Here I took the boat and went over to Brooklyn then, taking the Street cars, went down to Fort Hamilton 7 mils distant. I stayed down at the Fort about an hour. It is a very pretty place there, I assure you.
Then went back to New York. Sent 5 of my men down to Fort Columbus, Governors Island, New York Harbor. Got transportation for the rest of us and took the boat for New London, Connecticut.
Left 14 men there at Fort Trumbull, and then took the cars on the Norwich and Worcester line for Boston. We went to the Sanitary Rooms on Beech Street, and a fine place it is, I assure you. They give each soldier a ticket to go into a first class saloon and call for whatever he wants to eat, without cost to himself.
It was Thanksgiving day and they would not do any work at the government offices, so I had to stay all day. How I wished I was up with you to dinner! I went up to the top of Bunker Hill Monument. I haven't room for description or I would try to give you some idea of the grandeur of the view from this elevated spot. It certainly was as pretty as any person has ever described it. The most distant object that can be seen is the White Mountains, distant 90 miles.
I also went to the Boston Common, which is a fine park in this heart of the city. Almost in the afternoon I went down to Fort Independence on Castle Island. I went by the Government boat. It is a mile from the city.
Next day I took the boat about sundown for Portland, Maine, and when I woke up next morning I found myself in the city. I had to take 3 men over to Fort Preble, about a mile from the city and across the Kennebeck. When I went back, I found the boat did not go back to Boston until Monday night. I felt disappointed, but of course must make the best of it.
As I had no men to bother me until I got back to New York again, I could run about as I pleased, so I went all through the town in about 6 hours. To the "jail" where a girl came to the window and called me a "pretty soldier," to the Lookout Tower from where you can see the whole city, harbor, and country around for miles, to the "Navy Yard," and finally to the Boston and Maine Depot. And, finding a train would soon leave for the former place and the fare would be $2.60, I determined to buy a ticket, as my board would cost me as much if I stayed.
So Sunday morning found me in Boston again, where I stayed all day and went up to the reservoir and "Dorchester Heights" where Washington planted the guns that drove the British fleet from the harbor. Part of it is now a park.
Monday I took the cars for New London again, and that evening [took the] New London and New York Boat for the latter place. We were were coming through the narrowest part of the "Narrows" near "Hurlgate" when we run into a schooner. The channel was so narrow she could not get out of the way without running on the rocks, and with us it was the same. Her boom ran into the steamers side making an ugly hole but well [above the?]
[the rest of this letter is written at right angles to and on top of the previous text]
water mark. We finally got loose, with very severe loss on either side. [Note: It doesn't feel like Abiel means "loss of life" so I'm assuming this is a reference to damage, or perhaps property loss?]
I stayed all day in New York. I intended to go up and see Barney, but finding it was farther up than I should have time to go, I did the next best thing. Went to Barnum's to see the big Show. And a big show it is. Every thing from an elephant to a flea, and every stage complete. [Note: I believe this would be Barnum's American Museum, as Barnum did not enter the circus business until 1870. The Museum, alas, burned down a year and a half later.]
I still had to go out to Detroit, Michigan with some official papers and one man. [Note: This is the point when we start to seriously forgive Abiel for the lateness of his letter!] I found I should not be able to stop at Andover, so I made up my mind I would go 200 miles out of my way rather than see home and not be able to stop. So I took the Hudson River cars to Albany then the New York Central to Buffalo, where I stopped a few hours. Enough to see the city. Then down to Dunkirk, and by the Ohio Shore to Cleveland, Ohio, then to Toledo.
I made another stop here of three hours, then took the cars to Detroit. I took my man and government papers out to Fort Niagara, about 2 miles from the depot. I took breakfast at the fort then came away.
It was now I commenced to enjoy myself. I had no more responsibility here, and papers were all delivered, and in the language of Shakespeare "Richard was himself again." [Note: Tracking down this quote turns up the interesting fact that it isn't originally Shakespeare at all, but was added to a performance of Richard III by English actor Colley Cibber in 1699, and evidently "stuck." See footnote 1 in this article. In a random "all history is connected somehow" fashion, Colley Cibber was the father of famous cross-dressing (and by modern standards gender-queer and possibly even trans) actress Charlotte Charke.]
I run about through the city all day and then did not see half of it. In one place was a park with three little tame deer in it. They came to me and licked my hands and ate some cake out of them. I went to the Pork packing establishment where every thing is done by steam: killing, cleaning, cutting, and packing--all but salting. [Note: Although it's amusing to think of a pork packing plant as a tourist entertainment, I keep wondering how much of this sort of thing is a normal attitude toward sight-seeing at the time, and how much reflects Abiel's deep curiosity of everything around him that stood him in good stead, career-wise.]
Finally I came by the way of Toledo to Cleveland, Ohio, where I stopped 6 hours. Went up to the Navy yard. Also to the park where the celebrated statue of Commodore Perry is. Then down to the new breakwater they are building in the lake. About 2 O.C. I started for Pittsburg by the Pittsburg and Cleveland Railroad. I did not stop at Pittsburg, but came on by the way of [the] Pennsylvania Railroad to Harrisburg. Then by the Northern Central to Baltimore. Then by the B&O Railroad to Washington, and finally over here I was [at?] last, making just thirteen days since I started.
I was rather tired, notwithstanding the old course of things. Not quite into the old course either, for Colonel McKelvy was my command when I went away and General Abercrombie when I came back. Colonel McKelvy was meanly relieved, and the general has been commanding about ten days. We began to think there was no help for it when lo! Last night Colonel McKelvy comes over from Washington with an order from the Secretary of War putting him in command again. [Note: If you recall, there were previous grumblings about command politics, such as someone pumping Abiel to try to get dirt or complaints about McKelvy.]
When he got here it was after dark, and nobody around, but how the news got through camp that he had came back to take the old place, and the camp was wild with excitement! The officers flocked around him to welcome him back. He did not want anybody to know he was in charge again, but it was known somehow, and the men could not be restrained. It was hurrah for "Mac," Glory hallelujah man, and the like. Now we are all contented again.
I hope you accept my excuse for not writing as good, do you not sister? I could not well write when traveling. I should have written before I started, but I then thought I might get a chance to see you. But such was against me. I could not.
Dear sister, don't you think I ought to feel flattered when I have the chance of taking men for a trip, that any officer of the command would have given $100 dollars for this privilege of going on such a trip? I was allowed to go because I have the name of being so sober and honest. I would not tell any but the reason. But God bless you, you are my sister and I can tell you anything my vanity may suggest.
But I must close. I don't believe you can read this. I think I must do what I should like to, which is to beg you to excuse poor writing. My nerves are not very steady. A ride of 1500 miles in the cars will make anybody shake for a while.
Give my love to Janey. Kiss mother for me and believe me ever,
Your loving brother
A.T. La Forge
Chief Orderly
P.S. I enclose a copy of my warrant promoting me to a Lance Sergeant. My pay is not increased by it; it is merely a reward of merit. Like a brevet commission. Yours, A.T. LaF.
I have not time to read this over to correct mistakes. Will you kindly overlook it? LaF.
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LaForge Civil War DiariesTuesday, April 4, 2017 - 13:54
I've discused previously how the way that Alpennian characters talk to and about each other, and even what terms the use to think about each other, provides a constant commentary on their relationships and attitudes, whether it's of status, intimacy, or affection. But in some ways, I always had an out in that I was writing in the third person. A very tight third person, to be sure, but if Barbara thought something about the princess and called her simply "Annek" in the privacy of her thoughts, that could be chalked up to shorthand.
Things are a bit different for Roz, my protagonist in Floodtide. A big difference is that I'm writing in the first person--in her own voice. So I feel much more constrained to having her refer to the people around her using the terminology that would be appropriate if she were relating her story aloud to a listener. The second big difference is that the majority of the people she's dealing with outrank her, either in terms of social class or interactional status. When she beomes Iulien Fulpi's maid, there will never be any circumstance in the story where it would be appropriate for her to address her or refer to her simply as Iulien (much less as Iuli). It will always be "Maisetra Iulien." Even Dominique the dressmaker will always be "Mefro Dominique" to Roz because Roz is apprenticed to her and it's a matter of showing proper respect.
About the only people Roz is on a first name basis with are her close friends Celeste and Liv, and her fellow household servants--at least the ones at the lower end of the ladder. Charsintek the housekeeper gets a surname in deference to her status.
That's an awful lot of maisetras and maistirs and mesner(a)s and whatnot and I may devote an entire editing pass just to look for circumlocutions to avoid being repetitive in any given passage. But one of the reasons I wanted to use Roz as a viewpoint character was to look at Alpennian society from someone at the bottom. And part of being at the bottom is that constant awareness of one's place in the hierarchy. (It's part of being at the top, too, but in a different way.) No matter what adventures they share, Roz never loses sight that it's Maisetra Iulien, not Iuli. It will be quite a challenge to make it work.
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Writing ProcessPublications:
FloodtideTuesday, April 4, 2017 - 07:57
Due to the new Live Journal terms of service, I can't log in to my LJ without agreeing to the new TOS and the new TOS only exist (officially) in Russian. There are also serious concerns about some of the content. I will probably be closing down and deleting my account there. This is to test whether the automated cross-post will show up or be blocked by the TOS requirement. This is also to test whether the RSS version will show up.
Monday, April 3, 2017 - 07:15
Mills is turning out to be a very dense book, though I'll be skimming some chapters that deal primarily with male-related topics. By the way, check out this interview of me on J. Scott Coatsworth's blog!
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LHMPFull citation:
Mills, Robert. 2015. Seeing Sodomy in the Middle Ages. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago. ISBN 978-0-226-16912-5
Publication summary:
This is an in-depth study of the visual cues and visual representations of the concept of “sodomy” in medieval manuscripts and art, using the definition of that concept at the time, not the more specific modern sense. Mills looks at how gender and sexuality interact and challenges the perception that there was no coherent framework for understanding gender and sexual dissidence in the middle ages. The topics covered include images associated with the label “sodomite”, gender transformations and sex changes (especially in Ovid), and sexual relations in closed communities (such as religious houses). The analysis includes a consideration of the relevance of modern categories to the study of medieval culture.
Chapter 2 Transgender Time
I really, really like how this chapter addresses issues of the subjectivity of human categories. It is not enough to say, "medieval people didn't have a concept of sexual orientation that corresponds to our modern one." It's also important to note that their concept of gender didn't align with ours either. For that matter, their concept of what constituted "desire" or "sexual activity" didn't align with ours. And those concepts were constantly shifting and changing across history--not in a teleological way. It isn't that we have been "evolving" slowly to some sort of true and proper understanding of sexuality and gender, but rather that the concepts are inherently unstable and responsive to the belief, attitudes, and anxieties of the time. We ourselves live in a time when those concepts have been shifting rapidly and variably in different populations and cultures. Models that are prominent today will be considered quaint and antiquated later in our lifetimes--not because they are quaint and antiquated, but because that's the nature of change.
One reason I'm glad that Mills addresses the contrasting frames of sexual orientation and transgender identity is because it's a topic that feels like an underlying current in much of the material in the LHMP. I've been hesitant to do more than acknowledge and point out its existence myself, but Mills shows how the consideration can be part of a productive analysis. In a previous essay, I took on a very personal and subjective consideration of "who owns queer history?" Mills does something of the same, though on a much more academic level, in looking at the continuing re-interpretations of motifs like Iphis and Ianthe, not only in the medieval period but up through the present.
Mills asks (rhetorically) why medievalists rarely discuss transgender frameworks of interpretation, given that medieval people had much clearer ideas about that topic than anything that might be called “sexuality.” Moral polemics focused less on sex acts themselves, than on disruptions of gender, in particular those that violated the strict binary contrast of “male = active, female = passive.” Androgynous (or intersex) persons were recognized as existing, but were required to choose a consistent binary gender identity (or celibacy).
One of the anxieties around persons categorized as “sodomites” was that they might alternate their performative gender. Not only behavior, but fashion might be targeted as gender-disruptive. Sodomitical identity could be signled by gender performance rather than by sexual activity. Or that performance might itself be a symptom of a underlying vice. Homosexuality, per se, was not required to be a sodomite.
There was, however, an association in the medieval mind between cross-gender performance and homosexual acts, for example in the trial of John/Eleanor Rykener who engaged in prostitution “as a woman”. (The implication is that he engaged in prostitution with both men and women, performing the opposite gender from his client of the moment.) In 15th century Florence, only “passive” partners in m/m sex were associated with performance of feminine gender. Similarly, f/f couples primarily came to legal attention only when one partner performed masculinity, either by cross-dressing or by employing a penis substitute for sexual activity. Literary examples of “female masculinity” included women with an assertive sex drive, or women (such as Amazons) engaged in governance, who were considered sodomitical due to the inversion of assumed gender roles.
Mills uses a transgender framework to discuss these, while acknowledging how medieval topics and attitudes don’t align with the modern use of the terminology and concepts. Modern ideas of “choice” of gender expression don’t apply in the middle ages when options were limited both in terms of modification (i.e., surgery) and expression. Not until the early modern period were there identifiable subcultures such as the 18th century “mollies.”
Use of the term “transgender” risks becoming a normalizing approach rather than a disruptive one. Mills says he considered using a meta-term such as “transgender-like” in parallel to Bennett’s “lesbian-like”, or to the way Traub italicizes her use of “lesbian” to mark a distinction from modern use, but he says he discarded that approach because of the risk that it would imply an “undeveloped” version of transgender, rather than what he intended.
Mills discusses how to approach categories such as transgender where modern concepts don’t align with historic categories, e.g., the impossibility of aligning classical pederasty with modern concepts of homosexual orientation. Per Halperin, under modern homosexuality, the significance of gender and gender roles for categorizing sexual interactions disappears in favor of the choice of sexual partner.
Mills contrasts the concepts of friendship, pederasty, and gender-variance, all of which could be linked to sodomy. He then considers that modern categories of orientation and gender aren’t as clear or stable as they’re often treated. [Note by HRJ: Although Mills doesn’t cite it as an example, the phenomenon of people who had previously identified as butch lesbians coming to understand themselves as trans men might be pertinent here. Medieval people aren’t the only ones whose understanding of their identity is shaped by the concepts that society presents to them.] Also, the historic conceptual frameworks that apply to men don’t necessarily fit women well or at all. Butler’s concept of “gender as performance” can imply that all conformance to gender binaries is dispensable and artificial. Transgender can represent a “proto-homosexuality” imagined as inversion. But it also can represent an ideal of flexibility and liberation from gender binaries.
In medieval texts, the relative priority of gender over sexuality is because sexual sins are understood as a “bad imitation” of approved forms of sex. When sex between nuns is condemned by writers such as Hildegard of Bingen, it is as “fornication” rather than narrowly as homosexuality, although there are also concerns about using “artificial means”. Is sex between nuns simply a violation of celibacy or something more? Gender distinctions mean that women cannot aspire to priestly celibacy, as such. Hildegard notes that cross-dressing is not universally sinful, as such, but could be condoned if, for example a man’s life or a woman’s chastity [note the distinction!] were in danger. “[A woman] should not take on a masculine role, either in her hair or her attire.” Female cross-dressing simply out of “boldness” is not acceptable.
The requirement is that bodily sex and gender role must align and conform to a binary. Anything else is seen as “turning away from God.” Hildegard calls homosexuality “a strange and perverse adultery” whereas Peter Damian calls it “sodomy”. The emphasis is not on specific sexual practices but on having the appropriate partner. But there are distinctions in how the categories are applied to men and women. Circumlocutions about male sodomy often focus on the implication of anal intercourse, while polemics against female sodomy focus on a women usurping a (masculine) active role.
Hildegard’s arguments aren’t entirely coherent, for example in how cross-dressing is judged by purpose rather than by the act itself. And there’s an interesting contrast between Hildegard’s prohibitions on sexual activity between women and her own passionate/romantic attachments with women, recorded in convent records and correspondence. In Hildegard’s hierarchy of sin, women who usurp a masculine gender role are distinct from, and worse than, those who simply have a female sexual partner. And the latter doesn’t distinguish active and passive roles.
Mills now digresses for a discussion of the structures of 1940s-50s butch-femme performance. The medieval gender/sex hierarchy argues against attributing the modern category of “lesbian”, which prioritizes the same-sex aspect over the gender transgression aspect. It also deflects from the medieval focus on transsexual frameworks. The category “lesbian” makes invisible the medieval priority on transgender aspects of sodomy, while the category “transgender” makes invisible the “femme partner” in sex, whom medieval attitudes considered equally culpable.
Mills emphasizes that his use of the terms “lesbian” and “transgender” about medieval examples is not a way of defining or claiming them, but of identifying gaps in the medieval logic and shedding light on how the concepts combined differently in the medieval view.
The focus of this next section is Ovid’s story of Iphis and Ianthe, and medieval interpretations and extrapolations from it. The story has enjoyed recent interpretation as depicting lesbian/same-sex desire via a cross-gender framework. How does it illuminate the medieval world view to consider it instead in a transgender framework?
In Ovid’s story, Iphis was raised by her mother as a boy to protect her from her father's vow to kill girl children. She is betrothed to Ianthe (the literal girl next door) and they fall mutually in love. Iphis laments the “impossibility” of her desire. The conflict is resolved when the goddess Isis miraculously turns Iphis into a man. Iphis dwells on the “non-natural” nature of her desire, listing various animals and claiming that they don’t experience same-sex desire. Included is a reference to the story of Pasiphaë and the bull (in which Pasiphaë concealed herself in a model of a cow in order to have sex with a bull, thereby giving birth to the Minotaur), which Iphis see as less “mad” than her own desire, because at least it involved male and female. Despite all the human pressures to encourage the marriage between Iphis and Ianthe (including the desire of the two women themselves), “nature” is assumed to triumph and make it impossible.
Like many classical stories, this one was picked up and reinterpreted many times in medieval literature, including the several variants of the story in the Yde and Olive group. But Mills looks specifically at French and English version from the 14-15th century in “Ovid moralisé” manuscripts. Like the moralized bibles, these used visual interpretations of the text to comment on and create moral lessons based on the original story. In the process, they often changed the nature of the story to better illustrate the intended moral. This is a loose group of texts, centering around a French verse translation of Ovid from ca. 1328, which had the goal of claiming Ovid as a sort of proto-Christian philosopher by extracting Christianized lessons from the pagan text. The text group also includes two 15th century secular abridgements of the 14th century verse translation that discarded the moralizing commentary but kept the revised story lines. Mills also mentions other related, but not necessarily derivative, versions of the text.
These different versions had different approaches to how the “translation” of the story and the moralizing could diverge. For example, Caxton’s text contradicts Ovid’s claim that the name “Iphis” could be used by either gender--a reason given in the original for Iphis’s mother choosing it. Caxton’s text calls the name inherently masculine, implying that the use of the name is an active gender deceit, rather than a deliberate attempt to avoid making false gender claims in use of the name. Earlier translations followed Ovid in creating a passive allowance of an assumption of (male) gender, and specifically note that it was not a “lie”. Thus Caxton introduces the common trope of transgender status as inherently deceptive.
Conversely, in contrast to Ovid’s version, Caxton’s language attributes masculinity to Iphis before the physical transformation. Ovid emphasizes a “similarity” model of attractiveness and attraction, describing characteristics that are not implied to be inherently gendered. But when the language requires specificity, Ovid’s text identifies Iphis (pre-transformation) as female. Medieval texts often alternate pronouns more by context [HRJ note: see also this protean use of pronoun gender in the medieval romance Silence], and are more likely to discuss physical characteristics as specifically masculine or feminine. Caxton portrays Iphis as masculine even before the introduction of the theme of sexual desire for Ianthe. That is, Caxton’s Iphis is male in an essential way, just not quite male enough to marry a woman. This inherent masculinity is implied to be the basis for Iphis’s desire for Ianthe, but is not sufficient to enable consummation.
Ovid’s text frames Iphis’s desire as “new” and “monstrous”, while Caxton introduces the theme of Iphis being ashamed of desiring someone she isn’t worthy of (because of this monstrosity). In the context of this story, to desire a woman is to desire “as a male”. Caxton’s Iphis contemplates changing gender “by artifice” (like Daedalus) but considers that act impossible. This interpretation echoes Hildegard of Bingen’s opinion that the error is for a woman to desire “as a man”. It cannot be revolved by “nature”--rather the change of sex is miraculous as opposed to natural.
In Ovid, the transformation is narratively signaled by performance: Iphis is described as now having a masculine stride and features, short hair, masculine vigor.
A comparison is made to another Ovidian tale, that of Tiresias who underwent several transformations of sex due to divine action. Tiresias is implied to have experienced sexual desire both as a man and a woman, but the object of Tiresias’s desire was always determined by heterosexual imperative: as a man he desired women, as a woman she desired men. Thus Tiresias’s experience was “natural”.
As another comparison, the trial of John/Eleanor Rykener focused on the transgressive nature of mutable gender performance, even though always in a heterosexual framework. That is, John had sex with women as a man, while Eleanor had sex with men as a woman. In the medieval framework, the changeability was more significant than the specific transgender performance.
Classical sources believed in the occurance of spontaneous female-to-male transformation. These occur in histories, travelers’ tales, and other anecdotes. Pliny claims that some animals can change sex, even repeatedly. The concept of hermaphroditism in part had roots in philosopy and myth, but may also have been an attempt to create a framework for understanding intersex people. There were varying opinions on whether hermaphrodites had a “divinely” double nature (i.e., that it was a natural non-binary state) or fell more in the sodomite category. Some considered a “third sex” concept, where a individual was considered to have both male and female sexual organs, but the conclusion was that one should stick to a single performative gender role.
The version of Iphis and Ianthe in Gower’s Confessio Amantis (1390) includes a framing that is ambivalent about sex between women rather than entirely negative. It describes how, when the two girls lie together in bed as “playmates”, they “use a thing [i.e., object] unknown to them” in a way that is against nature. This version of the story at least implies the possibility of sexual activity between women, as contrasted with other versions that stop at the claim that it’s totally impossible. (Mills now spends a while in meditations on queerness and interpretive theory.)
Whatever the “thing” is in Gower’s text (possibly a dildo?), it can disrupt the definitions of sex, gender, and sexuality in the moralized Ovid. Mills offers a summary of descriptions from the medieval historic record of dildos used in sex between women, such as the legal cases of Bertolina and Katherina Hetzeldorfer. But the interpretation of Gower’s reference as a dildo is far from certain. It could simply be a reference to the female organ (clitoris). Similar language is used by Chaucer’s Wife of Bath, which she refers to the genitalia of both sexes as “small things”.
Mills now goes into a discussion of the “discovery” of the clitoris in 16th century medical treatises, and the popular theory at that time of a causal connection between an enlarged clitoris and sexual activity between women. But this 16th century “discovery” is not entirely accurate. William of Saliceto (13th c. Italy) clearly described the clitoris and echoes the claim s that women use it for sexual activity with other women.
In the “moralized Ovid” the general mapping of the story to Christian concepts goes as follows:
- Ligdus (Iphis’s father) = God
- Telethusa (Iphis’s mother) = the intercessory church
- Change of sex = divine grace for sinners
Thus we have the mapping:
- female Iphis = sinner
- male Iphis = virtuous Christian
But this equation in the verse Ovid Moralisé is preceded by a portrayal of Iphis as using an “artificial member” on the advice of a procuress to accomplish sex with Ianthe “against law and against nature.” This dildo is identified in French as a “chose” (the word also used by Chaucer’s Wife of Bath), which allows her to pay her “marital debt” by deceit. As in the tale of the Wife of Bath, male privilege is treated as a mobile and transferable object that can be appropriated. F/f eroticism is visible, but mediated by an object, rather than treated as an impossibility.
Mills presents a discussion of penitential manuals that mention “diabolical instruments” (machina) used between women for sex. This theme dates back as far as Hincmar of Rheims (9th c) and Burchard of Worms (10th c).
The verse Ovid Moralisé follows this obsession with dildos. Rather than the original “miraculous” transformation, we get artificial devices used for “deceptive” homosexual activity. Here we have a clearer parallel to the story of Pasiphaë with her artificial cow. The motif of the transferable penis touches back on the original tradition of the goddess Isis, where she creates an artificial penis for Osiris when reconstructing his dismembered body. But note that this tradition may not have been available to the medieval translators who inserted dildos in the story of Iphis.
When the moralized Ovid was abridged to remove the moralizing text, the earliest version removed the “instrument” scene, but other versions kept it and spun it differently. In 15th c. Bruges, where one version was published, there are records of multiple trials and executions of women for sodomy (although the specific acts are not indicated, so we don’t know if “instruments” were involved). The translator uses similar language to these trials in condemning Iphis’s dildo, though the specific word "sodomy" is not used. Similarly, this version retains a non-Ovidian ending where Iphis flees into exile, similar to the typical non-capital punishment for women convicted of sodomy in 15th c. Flanders.
Caxton’s version of the story eliminates the spiritual interpretation of the moralized texts entirely in favor of a misogynistic condemnation of a woman performing “as a man” in bed. His version depicts cross-dressed desire as leading to love, and then to marriage and sex, but when Iphis’s underlying gender is discovered, the result is shame and exile.
The moralized Ovid added illustrations early in the manuscript tradition, which provide additional interpretative information. One version prioritizes illustating the miraculous sex-change, but another features depictions of homoerotic potential. The oldest surviving illustrated version (from the first quarter of the 14th century: Rouen O.4) has the most extensive set of images. There are three illustrations of the Iphis story, plus two illustrations for the moral context.
- 1. The birth of Iphis
- 2. Iphis (as a girl) and her mother pray to Isis (while the accompanying text references the sex change)
- 3. A male Iphis with Ianthe is paired with a matching image of a penitent sinner
In the Paris Bibliotheque Arsenal 5069 ms, dated a few years later, there are some images that correspond to the Rouen manuscript, but most are different:
- 1. The birth of Iphis
- 2. Two women (Iphis and Ianthe) embrace. The poses suggest that Iphis is acting assertively, perhaps even agressively. There is a parallel image of a cleric forcing his attentions on a woman.
One theme of these texts is that they position female same-sex desire in “ancient time” while excluding the possibility from the present and future.In a consideration of the “chronology” of gender inversion tropes, the Ovid Moralisé situates Iphis’s sex change in a vanished past. Mills compares this with current scholarship that considers the concept of “sexual inversion” to be an obsolete model (i.e., situated in the past).
Another example of sex-change imagery from this period is Christine de Pizan’s (1403) “Book of Fortune’s Transformation.” The narrative voice of the poem represents a female author who, after the death of her husband, is transformed by “Fortune” into “a natural man”. The poem tells the story of how this happened. It includes a discussion of the story of Iphis. The narrator describes having been born female but feeling gender dysphoria and having always identified with their father, who wanted a son. There is a list of “miracles” of gender transformation from Ovid, but the focus in citing Iphis is on the mother’s regret for raising Iphis as a boy and so creating the context for same-sex desire. The poem presents Fortune as a “second mother” who re-births the narrator as a man, in grief for the husband’s death. The work creates no context for homoeroticism and focuses only on gender identity.
The driving force for the gender change of Christine’s narrator is not sexual, there is no mention of a penis (after transformation) or of desire. As the transformation is miraculous and independent of desire, there are no allusions to potential mechanics of sex between female bodies. This text erases the motif of “femme desire”, unlike in some other versions of Iphis and Ianthe, such as Caxton’s, in which Ianthe too is a desiring participant.
Another parallel is the collection of variants of the Yde and Olive tale. In these, Olive takes a strongly desiring role toward the cross-dressed Yde, desiring sexual consummation and continuing faithful to Yde even after Yde’s physiological sex is revealed. Olive’s father, on the other hand, when contemplating the possibility that he daughter is in a same-sex relationship refers to it as “buggery” and calls for penalties assigned to sodomites.
Mills finishes the chapter with a discussion of modern fictional interpretations of the Iphis and Ianthe story in a contemporary setting with a gender-fluid Iphis.
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Friday, March 31, 2017 - 08:07
Someone (and apologies for not having taken note of who) about a year ago posted a list of early utopian fiction by female authors and I went of and hunted down several of the titles listed. one of those was Mizora: A Mss. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch (1890), which purports itself to be a memoir "written by herself" but is copyrighted by Mary E. Bradley. (And despite the fiction that it was written by a Russian, the social and political concerns and assumptions are unmistakably American.)
The work begins with a framing story strikingly similar to that of Margaret Cavendish's The Blazing World: a woman comes by misadventure to be in a boat that drifts into a vast whirlpool in the Arctic regions that turns out to be a portal to "hollow earth," and spends the initial part of her time there recording a detailed (and somewhat tedious) account of the people and society she finds there. In the case of Mizora, the protagonist has come under the wrath of the Russian government for her progressive politics, is sent to Siberia, escapes on a whaling ship, lives for a while with an Innuit community, then borrows a boat from them to explore a strange expanse of mist and falls through the ocean to Mizora.
Mizora is a female utopia, that is, it is a utopia inhabited only by women. The protagonist is intensely curious about this aspect but doesn't inquire about it until perhaps the last third of the story due to her reticence about asking personal questions of her hosts. In the mean time, she is taught the language, introduced to the people and institutions, and gives a detailed account of how the society she finds has achieved a life of plenty and productive leisure through the miracles of chemistry and electricity. Food is largely synthesized (domestic animals have been eliminated), all machinery is run by electricity, compressed air, hydrogen fuel produced by electrolysis, and other clean methods. (How the electricity is produced is left somewhat as a mystery, but there are a few references to a natural power source generated by electromagnetic fields generated across the interior poles of the earth, so we may take this as the handwavium.)
Solving the problems of economic need through science has been augmented (as well as enabled) by eliminating violence, ignorance, and class. Education is free to all at all levels (and at any time of life) and is considered the greatest good. People are encouraged and supported in finding their true vocation, whether it be inventing new labor-saving devices (roombas! they invented roombas! I swear -- I'll include the excerpt below), devising new means of enabling education (big-screen live video conferencing!), or devising cuisines to use their chemically syntheized foodstuffs. (The protagonist is at first taken aback that her host's cook is treated as a social equal until she is given to understand that cooking is simply what that woman excels at and so she cooks for others with no implications of social inferiority.)
One curious omission in the cultural tour is the question of how the society reproduces itself. Families are maternal lineages and presumably the advanced medical science that--along with the benefits of "clean living" has greatly extended the Mizorans lifespans--takes care of the generative aspect. One side note: an early episode in the book (before the portal incident) involves the protagonist having an intensely romantic friendship with a young Polish woman whose death devastates her and precipitates her political activism. And the protagonist's emotional attachment to, and physical admiration of, one of the Mizoran women led me to hope that the book would touch on the same-sex romantic and erotic potentials of a single-sex society. Alas, after those initial teasers, we learn that Mizorans consider the mother-daughter bond the only significant emotional attachment possible (though cohort friendships also are noted) and there is no indication at all of any sort of pairings or other non-relative bonding as a basis for households and families.
It is when our protagonist finally gets up the nerve to ask, "Where are the men?" that we start learning some of the darker history of Mizora--though it isn't always clear what the author considers to be "dark". It seems that at some time deep in the mists of history (and yet still vividly in memory of those whose historical interests have led them to pay attention), Mizora had a society that was functionally identical to the world outside. A demographic and political crisis precipitated by ongoing wars led the women to seize power. The implication is that men were eliminated purely by virtue of the discovery of (never directly described) parthenogenic reproduction. Women stopped reproducing heterosexually, all children were daughters, and eventually all the men died out.
In the recitation of this process, the reader also learns some disturbing things about Mizoran philosophy (though it isn't entirely clear how the author intends us to take them), such as that the uniform pale skins and blonde hair of the Mizorans are due to eugenic selection. Mizorans determined "scientifically" that white, blonde, blue-eyed people are inherently superior, and therefore the process by which women are authorized to reproduce has deliberately selected for those characteristics. Similarly, in the early parts of the process of transforming Mizoran society, unfortunate personality and intellectual flaws were removed from the society by means of prohibiting their bearers from reproducing. Thus as the tale continues, what at first seemed like an intellectual and scientific paradise reveals itself as a humanitarian horror show. To be sure, no one was directly executed for social transgressions, but Mizoran society has evolved into a smug sense of the superiority of their engineered uniformity.
The protagonist seems to come to an echo of the disquiet that the modern (progressive) reader may be feeling, though she expresses it as a longing to return to her home to see her husband and son, and to bring Mizoran enlightenment to the outside world. To this end, she persuades her Mizoran "special friend" to accompany her. Alas, on their return, her husband and son have died. While the Mizoran is treated as a curiosity, no one takes her advice on social and scientific improvement seriously and she rapidly succumbs to the coarse food and environment and dies while trying vainly to travel back to the portal to Mizora.
The author has some interesting views on social improvement via a faith in the ability of education to eliminate negative social traits. But the fascination of this book is in the naive and startlingly prescient imagining of "better living through chemistry and electricity". I'll include the one description that made me laugh out loud.
[Mizora, chapter 6]
My first visit happened to be on scrubbing day, and I was greatly amused to see a little machine, with brushes and sponges attached, going over the floor at a swift rate, scouring and sponging dry as it went. Two vessels, one containing soap suds and the other clear water, were connected by small feed pipes with the brushes. As soon as the drying sponge became saturated, it was lifted by an ingenious yet simple contrivance into a vessel and pressed dry, and was again dropped to the floor.
I inquired how it was turned to reverse its progress so as to clean the whole floor, and was told to watch when it struck the wall. I did so, and saw that the jar not only reversed the machine, but caused it to spring to the right about two feet, which was its width, and again begin work on a new line, to be again reversed in the same manner when it struck the opposite wall. Carpeted floors were swept by a similar contrivance.
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