Medieval Literature. Analisis of an article - Essay Example

“The Gendering of Violence. Women in the Peasant Honor Plays: A Diversionary Tactic” The thesis of the article: In this article, Welles intends to redirect the general attention from glorifying the peasant life or condemning the reprehensible actions (based on political or economical motives) of ordinary people against the nobility – as main directions addressed by literary criticism when it comes to early modern Spanish literature – and to focus, instead, on the background stories of the Spanish dramaturgy: the assault of a man with authority against a maiden or a wife of an inferior condition.

The author’s thesis demonstrates that the motif of rape used in the early modern Spanish literature refers: Literally: to a sexually confrontation of instincts. Symbolically (and most important), the motif of rape consists in the insertion of the feminine role as a cover story for a series of political and social actions in the medieval state organization (social massacre or as pretext for or consequence of military conflict). The resume of the article: At the beginning of this article, the author approaches rape in terms of its narrative contribution in developing the dramatic action.

In order to establish the real significance of this underlying conflict (the rape), the author turns to Levi-Strauss’s anthropological theory from Elementary Structures of Kinship, in which any social group is based on an elementary form of exchanging gifts. In conceptual terms, marriage is a fair exchange between groups of men in order to achieve and maintain a peaceful social coexistence. On the other hand, a wrongful exchange of gifts in the primitive society (such as rape, a sexual misconduct considered to be a form of theft) leads to armed conflict.

In Lope’s Fuenteovejuna, the abduction of Laurencia (in Levi-Strauss’s terms this action presents itself as a form of theft) during wedding festivities and, therefore, the daughter’s philippic against her father is an illustration of the author’s thesis. Laurencia is of a unique beauty and of an exemplary morality (the romantic antagonism between angel – Laurencia – and demon – the hated comendador – built by Lope), relentless against those who surrounded to the comendador.

But her role is, ultimately, to distract the audience from the structural principle of the play (the “scapegoat of the text” as key expression in Rene Girard’s terminology): she serves to mask the acts of cruelty caused by mass revolt and, simultaneously, to make the massacre possible. If women are reduced to objects of exchange in early social forms of organization, we may mistakenly assume that their literary reflections in the Spanish dramaturgy have no point of authority.

In the seventeenth-century Spanish comedia, for instance, there are no lines for the female roles, but women are in a position of power as triggers of the plot: men confront each other for a better social position and, ultimately, for a woman’s worship (the female becomes in this case a privilege of class). Welles’s analysis brings up front the handling mechanisms of female sexuality that have the strength to print a direction to the political discourse of the plays. The pattern for this mix of politics and sexuality in literature is the fetishization of Lucrecia’s chastity Chastity See also Modesty, Purity, Virginity.

Agnes, St. virgin saint and martyr. [Christian Hagiog.: Brewster, 76] Artemis (Rom. Diana) moon goddess; virgin huntress. [Gk. Myth. Click the link for more information. in Rojas Zorilla’s play, Lucrecia y Tarquino. Key words Welles uses Girard’s terminology in order to correlate the two layers of Spanish plays: “scapegoat of the text” (the story about the rape that distracts the attention from the mass revolutions or from the cruelty acts of the mob) and “scapegoat in the text” (the structural principle hidden behind the motif of the rape, the political and social of rivalry).

Other key words to point the idea of a society based on a form of gift exchanging (an anthropological theory by Levi-Strauss) are gift-giving as rightful (marriage, for example) or wrongful (rape, considered to be a form of theft) exchange. The Freudian theories bring to the discourse the key expression “rape equals being castrated”. For instance, if decapitating is a form a castration (according to Freud), Welles considers – mutatis mutandi – that raping means being castrated.

The critical evaluation of the article: Finally, I agree with author’s analysis that highlights the disturbing obsession manifested by the seventeenth-century Spanish society for rape, violence, political power and social climbing. The author’s methodology relies mainly on psychoanalytic psy·cho·a·nal·y·sis   n. pl. psy·cho·a·nal·y·ses 1. a. The method of psychological therapy originated by Sigmund Freud in which free association, dream interpretation, and analysis of resistance and transference are Click the link for more information.

 (hints to Freud’s equation in Medusa’s Head, where the decapitation is considered castration, for example) and anthropological theory, also allowing correlations between medieval texts and modern art forms (for instance, Jane Campion’s film The Piano). Yet, all the arguments presented by Welles in order to support her thesis doesn’t seem fully embedded (just suggestions to the social and historical context, without actually diving) in the historical context in order to establish for the audience a vast connections between literary criticism and the political and social history of ideas.