Lesbian Historic Motif Project: #75 Younger 2002

(I explain the LHMP here and provide a cumulative index.)

The self-conscious deliberateness of art can mislead the researcher who is looking for “casual snapshots” of life and relationships. But that deliberation makes it all the more significant when unexpected bonds between individuals are portrayed. Funerary memorials were and important (and expensive) statement regarding the relationships between the deceased and those who erected the monument. When the relationships portrayed are not the expected ones of marriage or immediate family, it is reasonable to conclude that they were both publicly acknowledged and valued, whatever the specifics of those relationships may have been.

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Younger, John G. “Women in Relief: ‘Double Consciousness’ in Classical Attic Tombstones” in Rabinowitz, Nancy Sorkin & Lisa Auanger eds. 2002. Among Women: From the Homosocial to the Homoerotic in the Ancient World. University of Texas Press, Austin. ISBN 0-29-77113-4

Although honoring the dead was a duty of Athenian citizens (i.e., men), the rituals of mourning and the work of tending to graves largely belonged to women. And an analysis of tombstones from the most important cemetery of 5-4th century Athens shows that women were more commonly featured on memorial carvings as well. Carved tomb markers frequently depict two or more figures: the deceased and persons who presumably were important in their life or who wished to be depicted as mourners. Details of the relative positions and interactions of the figures communicate information about their relationships, in addition to the information supplied by inscriptions. For example, clasped hands indicate a close family relationship such as spouse, parent, or sibling.

Within this context, we can identify tomb markers where the primary mourner of a deceased woman is another woman who does not have any indications of being an immediate family member. This is, at the very least, an indication that there were Athenian women of this era whose most important survivor was an unrelated (in the familiar sense) woman. The following is an example of this type:

Two women are depicted, standing facing each other but not clasping hands; both are named (and not related); there is an inscription, “Her companions crown this tomb of Anthemis with a wreath in their remembrance of her virtue and friendship.” (Praise of this sort for the deceased is often attributed specifically to a spouse or parents.)

Three markers share a similar layout: a woman stands on the left with her hand raised in a speaking gesture while another woman is seated to the right (by convention the seated woman is the deceased). There is no indication of a family relationship between them, or in some cases both are named and the names indicate no connection. In two other memorials with similar (non)-relatives, the two women are embracing. The most suggestive of the type, though from Thessaly rather than Athens, portrays two women facing each other with hand gestures that are associated with homosexual courtship when men are portrayed using them. The women offer each other flowers, generally accepted as a symbol of desire or good intentions in art of this era.

Whatever the exact nature of the relationships between these deceased women and their female mourners, there are indications of strong same-sex social (rather than familial) bonds that were significant enough to be memorialized.

The Year in Random Review

Since I have some time to kill before heading off to a NYE party (and it would be dangerous to think I could catch a quick nap), herewith is the "first sentence of each month's postings" meme. I reserve the right to strip off the introductory link-statement for any of them that are LHMP posts.

January: Just for grins and giggles -- and for various other sociological reasons -- I've taken up the challenge to enter the West Kingdom's A&S championship this year.

And, in fact, I carried through. I didn't enter as many of the individual competitions as I originally planned to, but I entered enough to technically qualify for the overall championship. No chance at all of winning -- that wasn't what I was in it for -- but a goal achieved.

February: As you may remember from the last post, we get a view into what else was going on at these banquets (besides eating) from the 1548 menu which describes a “flower game” that comes after the confectionary course and before the collation.

This was one of a series of posts doing a structural analysis of a set of feast menus from the 16th c. Italian chef Messisbugo. It was a really fun project and I hope other people got some useful information out of it.

March: So I still haven't finished blogging the books I bought at Kalamazoo last May (and true to my vow, they're still sitting stacked on the coffee table in the living room waiting for me to do so).

I did, in fact, catch up with my book-intake blogging before going to Kalamazoo again, and have kept up-to-date on it ever since then.

April: In honor of @LeVotreGC's twitter movement #whanthataprilleday (posts in ancient or medieval languages), I offer a translation** into Medieval Welsh of the opening paragraph of my Mabinogi-pastiche lesbian romance story Hoywferch:

And, in fact, this exercise may have been the kick-in-the-pants I needed to return to the story and clean it up a bit. It is currently out on submission and I should hear back on whether they want it by the end of next week. If this market doesn't want it, I'll figure out where to send it next.

May: I'm working on a number of writing-related projects at the moment, but there's nothing to actually show for it yet. But just to feel like I've been doing something, here's the list:

Out of 10 projects I listed in that post, 7 of them were completed/accomplished as planned or in an equivalent manner. Three weren't: 2 blog posts that would have required significant research (and my research energy has gone elsewhere), and I wasn't able to convince Bella to take up the Skin-Singer collection (on the other hand, the final story for that is completed, so maybe that should count to tick off the box).

June: I hope to finish up the intake-reviews in two more sessions.

Yes, once more I'm powering through the book-intake posts from shopping at Kalamazoo.

July: Even though I'm relaxing my one-a-day rule now that June is past, I didn't want to start off on the wrong foot by skipping a day.

I started the Lesbian Historic Motif Project in June with a post every day, then slacked off to only three per week. I've kept that schedule up successfully since then and have enough material to continue at that rate for perhaps a couple of years at this point.

August: The 1996 collection Handbook of Medieval Sexuality should be viewed in light of its chronology in the emerging field of the history of historic gender and sexuality studies.

Statistically speaking, a first-of-the-month post has only a slightly less than even chance of being from the LHMP.

September: Emma Donoghue writes incredibly fact-dense books drawn from impressively deep research into English historic lesbian culture.

But, in fact, due to the vagaries of the calendar, the universe aligns such that 5 of 6 first-of-the-month posts in the second half of the year are LHMP posts. This is, to some extent, representative of what I've been doing with my time.

October: The heart of Brooten's research are a handful of references to erotic relationships between women in literature that is not necessarily focusing on the social politics of sex (and therefore where the discussion is not as self-consciously polemical).

As I said …

November: I was busy transcribing text for what was supposed to be chapter 1 of Mother of Souls and I realized that the impending pregnancy discussed in that chapter just didn't work at all in terms of timing and needed to be put off for a year.

Courtesy of a wall full of colorful post-it notes, I organized all my plot ideas for Mother of Souls and Floodtide and started the serious phase of my next two books. I'm really rather excited about the complexity involved.

December: This is a sizable work, tackling the broad topic of female homoeroticism in 16-17th century England.

And with that, my year comes to a close.