Lady Philosophy and La Vieille: Old Women, Aging Bodies, and Female Authority in Late Medieval French Literature PDF
Preview Lady Philosophy and La Vieille: Old Women, Aging Bodies, and Female Authority in Late Medieval French Literature
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LADY PHILOSOPHY AND LA VIEILLE: OLD WOMEN, AGING BODIES, AND FEMALE AUTHORITY IN LATE MEDIEVAL FRENCH LITERATURE Melinda Marsh Heywood A DISSERTATION in Romance Languages Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 1997 1 (slJL Supervisor of Dissertation | IlL Graduate Group Chairperson Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: 9800870 Copyright 1997 by Heywood, Melinda Marsh All rights reserved. UMI Microform 9800870 Copyright 1997, by UMI Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. COPYRIGHT MELINDA MARSH HEYWOOD 1997 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Dedication To Pamela Daniels, compass of my soul mentor and friend: your integrity is forever in the folds of my heart. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Acknowledgments I owe a great debt of gratitude to the following people: Michele Respaut, in whose literature classes at Wellesley College I once so inspiredlv sat. Without her unparalleled example and encouragement I would not have chosen this path. My advisor, Kevin Brownlee, for his strong support and guidance in academic and professional matters, for his excellent medieval literature seminars, and for his good-natured willingness to read and critique the various conference papers and chapter drafts which I thrust upon him on short notice. Sylvia Huot, in whose thoughtful seminar on the Roman de la Rose that this thesis first took shape. Sarah Kay, whose seminar on gender and narrative in medieval French literature during my first year of graduate school made me enthusiastic about becoming a medievalist. Lance Donaldson-Evans and Joan Dejean, for their helpful readings and insightful criticisms of my dissertation, and for their superb graduate seminars. I wish to thank my friends and the members of my family — Phil, Deanna, Cecil, Lily, Piper, John, Peggy, Stephen, and Ben — for their love, humor, support, vivacity, guitar playing, belly dancing, circus performing, house building, and overall wonderfulness. It was much easier to produce this dissertation with them in my life (although it did not always seem so at the time). I want to extend a special thanks to mv - iv - Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. brother Jack, for understanding the bottom line and scientifically calculating (and recalculating when needed) how many pages I would have to write a day (1.83) to finish this thesis on time. Finally, thanks to Jamie for being his eternally enthusiastic, boundlessly supportive, and wild, sparkling self. - v - Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT LADY PHILOSOPHY AND LA VIEILLE: OLD WOMEN, AGING BODIES, AND FEMALE AUTHORITY IN LATE MEDIEVAL FRENCH LITERATURE Melinda Marsh Heywood Kevin Brownlee This dissertation focuses critical attention on portrayals of the old female body as a means of investigating the politics and interplay of age, gender, and authority in select literary works of the late Middle Ages. I trace the considerable impact Boethius’s Lady Philosophy and the Cumaean Sibyl have on portrayals of aging female characters in late medieval French texts such as the Roman de la Rose by Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, La Vieille on les Demieres Amours d’Ovide by Jean Le Fevre, and De Uvre du Due des Vrais Amans by Christine de Pizan, analyzing in detail the complex interplay between age and sex, body and authority. Drawing from cultural perspectives on aging and the body as well as gender theory, I discuss both positive and negative, both corporeal and intellectual features of the late medieval literary construct of the “vieille.” My thesis takes into account medieval notions of female senescence as expressed in a variety of discursive contexts, especially medical, scientific, moral and didactic. Poised on the threshold between erotic life and sterile death, between esteemed authority and futile senility, the figure of the vieille offers a window onto medieval attitudes towards women, aging, sexuality, mortality, and bodies in decline. - vi - Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. In general, aging female characters are denigrated, their authority undermined, and they are perceived as disgusting or threatening figures in male- authored late medieval works, but Christine de Pizan can be seen as desiring to rehabilitate or “correct” these negative images. This dissertation concludes with an examination of how Christine’s utilizations of the old woman figure are profoundly innovative, and considers how her strategies to revalorize the figure of the “vieille” are related to her personal attempts at establishing her authority as an erudite woman author in an intellectual milieu that has hitherto been fundamentally masculine and misogynist. vu - Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
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