Generation and Degeneration

Valeria Finucci

Description

This distinctive collection explores the construction of genealogies-in both the biological sense of procreation and the metaphorical sense of heritage and cultural patrimony. Focusing specifically on the discourses that inform such genealogies, Generation and Degeneration moves from Greco-Roman times to the recent past to retrace generational fantasies and discords in a variety of related contexts, from the medical to the theological, and from the literary to the historical.The discourses on reproduction, biology, degeneration, legacy, and lineage that this book broaches not only bring to the forefront concepts of sexual identity and gender politics but also show how they were culturally constructed and reconstructed through the centuries by medicine, philosophy, the visual arts, law, religion, and literature. The contributors reflect on a wide range of topics-from what makes men "manly" to the identity of Christ's father, from what kinds of erotic practices went on among women in sixteenth-century seraglios to how men's hemorrhoids can be variously labeled. Essays scrutinize stories of menstruating males and early writings on the presumed inferiority of female bodily functions. Others investigate a psychomorphology of the clitoris that challenges Freud's account of lesbianism as an infantile stage of sexual development and such topics as the geographical origins of medicine and the materialization of genealogy in the presence of Renaissance theatrical ghosts.This collection will engage those in English, comparative, Italian, Spanish, and French studies, as well as in history, history of medicine, and ancient and early modern religious studies.Contributors. Kevin Brownlee, Marina Scordilis Brownlee, Elizabeth Clark, Valeria Finucci, Dale Martin, Gianna Pomata, Maureen Quilligan, Nancy Siraisi, Peter Stallybrass,Valerie Traub

Sujets

• History of religions
• History of Europe
• 1500
• Europe

Informations

• Publié par: Duke University Press
• Date de parution: 13 mars 2001
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780822380276
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

G E N E R A T I O N A N D D E G E N E R A T I O N Q

G E N E R A T I O N

A N D D E G E N E R A T I O N

Tropes of Reproduction in

Literature and History from Antiquity

through Early Modern Europe

                    

             

Q

Duke University Press

Durham and London 

©  Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper  Typeset in Dante by Tseng Information Systems, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data appear on the last printed page of this book. An earlier version of ‘‘Menstruating Men’’ was published in Italian as ‘‘Uomini menstruanti: Somiglianza e differenza fra i sessi in Europa in etá moderna,’’Quaderni Storici, no.  (): –.

CONTENTS Q

Acknowledgments

vii

I N T RO D UC T I O N          Genealogical Pleasures, Genealogical Disruptions 

 T H E O R I E S O F R E P RO D UC T I O N         .    Generation, Degeneration, Regeneration: Original Sin and the Conception of Jesus in the Polemic between Augustine and Julian of Eclanum 

         Maternal Imagination and Monstrous Birth: Tasso’sGerusalemme liberata

 B O U N DA R I E S O F S E X A N D G E N D E R    .     Contradictions of Masculinity: Ascetic Inseminators and Menstruating Men in Greco-Roman Culture 

        Menstruating Men: Similarity and Difference of the Sexes in Early Modern Medicine 

         The Psychomorphology of the Clitoris, or, The Reemergence of theTribadein English Culture

 F E M A L E G E N E A LO G I E S                    Genealogies in Crisis: María de Zayas in Seventeenth-Century Spain 

            Incest and Agency: The Case of Elizabeth I 

 T H E P O L I T I C S O F I N H E R I TA N C E     .       In Search of the Origins of Medicine: Egyptian Wisdom and Some Renaissance Physicians 

           The Conflicted Genealogy of Cultural Authority: Italian Responses to French Cultural Dominance inIl Tesoretto, Il Fiore,andLa Commedia

          Hauntings: The Materiality of Memory on the Renaissance Stage 

Index



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Q

This book was born out of weekly dinner conversations held a few years ago in Philadelphia. Each Thursday we alternated between two different seating arrangements at the Brownlees’ table: at :, we participated in the children’s activities; and at :, we turned conversation into adult con- cerns. Generation and genealogy were more than fortuitous issues for us in those days, as Kevin and I, each for different existential reasons, started to contest biology and retest time. Soon our project turned into a collabora- tive process. Bringing colleagues on board became an occasion for creating friendships and renewing cooperation, and we relied on the efficiency of electronic mail to keep conversations going, no matter the miles. A visit by Dale Martin in Florence enlarged the original time frame of our inquiry, and a conference at Duke University on the body brought in Nancy Siraisi’s voice. We have stories (and memories) for each of our friends in the vol- ume—their intellectual interests are spread all over these pages just as their wit has brightened our endeavor. We are happy to acknowledge the good will of Reynolds Smith of Duke University Press for his interest in the project and for shepherding it to the end; the anonymous readers contacted by the press for their generous sug- gestions, enthusiastic assessments, and a new turn at the title; Giuseppe Gerbino for his humor and expert skills at indexing; Maura High for her patience at each shift of our collective syntax; Patricia Mickelberry for her professional handling of the manuscript; and Sharon Torian for her sunny disposition. Marina Brownlee provided the most cheerful friendship and love. Eliza- beth Clark was there, as always. To them we—the lucky ones—dedicate this book.

Introduction Genealogical Pleasures, Genealogical Disruptions  

Q

This book is about the discourses that inform constructions of genealo- gies, whether we speak of genealogy in the biological sense of procreation and reproduction or in the metaphorical sense of heritage and cultural patrimony. It retraces generational fantasies and generational discords in a variety of related contexts, from the medical to the theological, and from the literary to the historical. It moves through a number of centuries, from Greco-Roman times to our more recent past. It reflects on topics as varied as what makes men manly to who is Christ’s father, and from what kinds of erotic practices went on among women in sixteenth-century Turkish seraglios to how men’s hemorrhoids can be variously labeled. Such discourses necessarily bring to the forefront concepts of sexual identity and gender politics. For many centuries generation—and thus genealogy—has been understood as men’s business. So much has been written by physicians, theologians, philosophers, anthropologists, cultural critics, and writers of literature on why men and engendering are linked, that the point hardly seems in need of elaboration here. Women do not gen- 1 erate, Augustine reminds us, following the scripture. They conceive. But can any man generate, and is marriage only for the generating kind? Unlike Roman law, the church did not take a position until a brief of Pope Six- tus V, ‘‘Cum frequenter’’ (), was interpreted as declaring that eunuchs, castrati, andspadones(that is, men with damaged sexual organs) were not real men because they could not offer intergenerational continuity, no mat- ter their heterosexual affections, if any, and therefore could not legally

. Augustine,Opus imperfectum... See also Clark’s essay in this volume.