The study examines textual representations of women's laughter and smiling and their imagined connection to female virtue in a wide variety of discourses and contexts of the German Middle Ages, including medieval epic, ecclesiastical texts, conduct literature, lyric, and sculpture. By engaging with the competing, and at times contradictory, views of female laughter, it reaffirms a disputatious nature of medieval culture, in which multiple views of femininity, sexuality, and virtue stood in a conflicting, yet productive, dialogue with one another. The society that emerges when one looks at medieval German texts is always ambivalent: it thrives on and enjoys talking about sensuality and eroticism, while being constrained by the conventions of polite behavior and the fear of sin; it relies on the ritual use of laughter, while marking it as a sign of lust and perdition. Women's laughter thus offers an important way into understanding medieval views of gender.
Author(s): Olga V. Trokhimenko
Series: Transatlantische Studien zu Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit / Transatlantic Studies on Medieval and Early Modern Literature and Culture, 5
Publisher: V&R Unipress
Year: 2014
Language: English
Pages: 254
City: Göttingen
Acknowledgements
Frequently Used Abbrevations
Introduction. Liberated Yet Controlled: The Problem of Women's Laughter
1. “You Are No Longer a Virgin”: The Two “Mouths” of a Medieval Woman
The Importance of the Mouth
Mouths That Matter: Isn't It Obvious?
Mouths That Matter: Medieval Literary Constructions of Gender
The Two Mouths: Medieval Medical Perspective
The Two Mouths: From Kissing to Sex
The Two Mouths: Extreme Cases and Confusion of Orifices
The Dangers of Openness
2. A Deeply Serious Matter: Laughter in Medieval Ecclesiastical Discourse
Medieval Theologies of Laughter
Fighting the Body: Laughter in the Early Church and Early Medieval Monasticism
Rejecting Eroticism: Controlling Female Bodies
Tensions within the Early Christian View of Laughter
Debate Continues: High-Medieval Theology of Laughter
3. “Men Are Not of One Mind”: Medieval Conduct Literature for Women
The Laughter of Courtly Women: Complexities and Concerns
Belonging to Two Worlds: Meet the Courtly Cleric
Non-Gendered Laughter in Conduct Texts: Saving Souls and Reputations
Bodily Virtue or Social Prestige: Gendered Education and Laughter
Restraining Bodies: Voices against Women's Laughter
Complicating Matters: Attractive Laughter
“Nobody Sees Things the Same Way”: Femininity and Laughter in 'Das Frauenbuch'
Social Constructs of Femininity: Some Conclusions
4. “The Pleasure Never Told”: Men's Fantasies and Women's Laughter in Love Lyric
Courtly Lyric, Laughter, and Familiar Paradigms
“Laugh, My Dear Lady”: When Courtly Women Smile
“I Love a Woman Who Is Good and Beautiful”: The Courtly Lady's Two Bodies
“Her Red Mouth Began to Smile Almost Unnoticeably”: Sexualizing the Body Natural
“I Would Gladly Speak of That Which Should Not Be Named”: Circumventing Lofty Love
'Vor liebe gelachet': Laughter beyond the Canzone
“I Can't Help Thinking of Love”: Woman's Laughter and Man's Dreams of Power
5. “She Is Beautiful and She Is Laughing?” Courtly Smiling in the Iconography of Virtue and Vice
Querying Smiling Femininity
Damned or Chosen: The Parable and Its Visual Representation
Enduring Prejudice: Strassburg's Courtly Femininity and Smiling Sin
Enduring Prejudice? Magdeburg's Courtly Femininity and Smiling Virtue
Epilogue. “Those Days Are Over”? Inhabiting a Tradition
Appendices
1. Tables
2. Images
Bibliography
Index
