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(I explain the LHMP here.)
It's fun sometimes to get contrasting (or augmenting) takes on the same historic sources from scholars with different backgrounds and expertise. Sahar Amer has a number of takes on the interface between Arabic and French literature in the middle ages and all the ones I've read have been fascinating and enlightening.
* * *
Amer, Sahar. “Lesbian Sex and the Military: From the Medieval Arabic Tradition to French Literature” in Same Sex Love and Desire Among Women in the Middle Ages (ed. By Francesca Canadé Sautman & Pamela Sheingorn), Palgrave, New York, 2001.
Amer draws close connections between the symmetric penis-less images of Etienne de Forgères' 12th century French poem Livre des Manières, a catalog-in-verse of different classes of people, focusing on the vices they are prone to. Parallels are noted between the language of this poem and depictions of lesbian sexuality found in Arabic homoerotic literature. The article includes an extensive general discussion of Arabic sources for the language of courtly love and a lament for the ways Eurocentrism has impeded and obscured exploration of these connections.The author explores whether European expression of lesbian desire in literature can be connected to Arabic sources the way male homosexual literature can, The texts considered on the French side are Bieris de Romans, Yde and Olive, and the Livre des Manières. Specific metaphoric images such as "join[ing] shield to shield without a lance" are also found in Arabic sources. (E.g., “They invented a tournament in which there is no use of lance, Hitting only with great noise one shield against the other!”) Other image parallels are noted. The most daring suggestion is to connect the obscure word "trutennes" in de Fougere with an Arabic root t-r-t found in at least one Arabic erotic text to refer to the mons, a reading that brings sense to de Fougères couplet where it appears. The author reviews other Arabic erotic texts that include descriptions of lesbian sex, however the image parallels with the French texts are more attenuated in those, such as attempts to find parallels for “thigh-fencing". The most detailed and evocative of the Arabic texts is quoted here in full:
( Maybe just a smidge NSFW. )
Keywords: sex lesbians erotica metaphor
It's fun sometimes to get contrasting (or augmenting) takes on the same historic sources from scholars with different backgrounds and expertise. Sahar Amer has a number of takes on the interface between Arabic and French literature in the middle ages and all the ones I've read have been fascinating and enlightening.
* * *
Amer, Sahar. “Lesbian Sex and the Military: From the Medieval Arabic Tradition to French Literature” in Same Sex Love and Desire Among Women in the Middle Ages (ed. By Francesca Canadé Sautman & Pamela Sheingorn), Palgrave, New York, 2001.
Amer draws close connections between the symmetric penis-less images of Etienne de Forgères' 12th century French poem Livre des Manières, a catalog-in-verse of different classes of people, focusing on the vices they are prone to. Parallels are noted between the language of this poem and depictions of lesbian sexuality found in Arabic homoerotic literature. The article includes an extensive general discussion of Arabic sources for the language of courtly love and a lament for the ways Eurocentrism has impeded and obscured exploration of these connections.The author explores whether European expression of lesbian desire in literature can be connected to Arabic sources the way male homosexual literature can, The texts considered on the French side are Bieris de Romans, Yde and Olive, and the Livre des Manières. Specific metaphoric images such as "join[ing] shield to shield without a lance" are also found in Arabic sources. (E.g., “They invented a tournament in which there is no use of lance, Hitting only with great noise one shield against the other!”) Other image parallels are noted. The most daring suggestion is to connect the obscure word "trutennes" in de Fougere with an Arabic root t-r-t found in at least one Arabic erotic text to refer to the mons, a reading that brings sense to de Fougères couplet where it appears. The author reviews other Arabic erotic texts that include descriptions of lesbian sex, however the image parallels with the French texts are more attenuated in those, such as attempts to find parallels for “thigh-fencing". The most detailed and evocative of the Arabic texts is quoted here in full:
( Maybe just a smidge NSFW. )
Keywords: sex lesbians erotica metaphor
