I AM MYSELF THE MATTER OF MY BOOK: GENDER, FRIENDSHIP, AND WRITING IN ...

238 Pages·2015·13.4 MB·English

I AM MYSELF THE MATTER OF MY BOOK: GENDER, FRIENDSHIP, AND
WRITING IN HELISENNE DE CRENNE AND MARIE DE GOURNAY

Emily Rose Cranford

A dissertation submitted to the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the
Department of Romance Languages and Literatures (French and Francophone Studies)

Chapel Hill
2015

Approved by:

Hassan Melehy

Dominique Fisher

Dorothea Heitsch

Ellen R. Welch

Jessica Wolfe
© 2015
Emily Rose Cranford
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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ABSTRACT

Emily Rose Cranford: I am myself the matter of my book: Gender, Friendship, and
Writing in Hélisenne de Crenne and Marie de Gournay
(Under the direction of Hassan Melehy)

The framework of early modern gender wars situates androgyny, intersexuality,
and transgender phenomena as powerful yet risky, eminent yet subversive, symbols in
early modern discourse. Hélisenne de Crenne and Marie de Gournay manipulate and
transform iconic genders in early modern French culture, rewriting masculinist friendship
traditions and reproductive imperative. These authors evoke the intersexuality with which
their culture is obsessed in order to present the reality of fluctuating notions of sexe and
gender. In her Angoysses douloureuses qui procèdent d’amours (1538) and Epîtres
familières et invectives (1539) Hélisenne de Crenne detaches gender from the sexed body
and represents multiple masculinities, from effeminate men to hypervirile men to virile
women. In her Proumenoir de M. de Montaigne qui traite de l’amour dans l’oeuvre de
Plutarque (1594), Les Advis ou Les présens de la demoiselle de Gournay (1639), and her
multiple prefaces to Montaigne’s Essais (1595-1641) Marie de Gournay argues the cause
of women and challenges misogynistic conceptions of female intellectual incapacity by
forming notions of family that, like Michel de Montaigne’s literary progeny, work
outside the bounds of sexed bodies and the institution of marriage. Marie de Gournay and
Hélisenne de Crenne use transgendered literary personae to work within and through the
boundaries of friendship, gender, and love in early modern France. Through textual
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dialogues about (female) sexuality, friendship, gender, and writing that are queer in their
subversions of gender-based conceptions of textual generation, these authors participate
subversively in the Querelle des femmes. These two women produce proto-feminist
arguments by detaching masculinity from the male body, by entering male literary realms
through masculine personae, and by feminizing the masculinist literary traditions popular
in early modern France.

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To my mother, Anita, who has been père et mère for many years.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many people have made this project possible through their support and friendship. I
would like to thank my committee members Dominique Fischer, Ellen Welch, and
Jessica Wolfe for their close readings and wonderful suggestions for the future of this
project. A special thank you to Dorothea Heitsch, who has supported and encouraged me
for years. I will always treasure the books you have so kindly offered me. I would like to
thank Barb Bennett, who was an exhuberent ecofeminist mentor in my early
undergraduate years and made my first academic conference paper possible. Kendall
Tarte, thank you for your years of support and mentorship; I can credit you with inspiring
me to major in French at Wake Forest. I would also like to thank Stephen Murphy for
mentoring my strange obsession with Baudelaire, for being patient with us nine
dijonnaises, and for his seminar on travel, which still inspires my research and teaching
today. Chapters two and four were made possible through summer research grants in
2009 and 2010 provided by UNC Chapel Hill’s Department of Romance Studies. I would
like to thank Ed Montgomery for sharing his knowledge of Old French with me. A very
special thank you to my UNC friends Manhal Dandashi, Cale LaSalata, Keith Schaefer,
and Anne Steinberg. Katie Boyle, you are my rock. Mary Greenwood, you are a
champion. Chapter six was made possible by Centre College’s Faculty Development
Committee summer research grant in 2014. I would like to thank my friends and
colleagues at Centre for their encouragement and words of wisdom: Carol Bastian, Helen
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Emmitt, Patrice Mothion, Ken Keffer, Mary Daniels, Mandy Higgins, Jenn Goetz, Jim
Morrison, and Jami Powell. My friend and reader Danille LaLonde, I can’t thank you
enough for talking about Camilla with me. My shorn sister Eva Cadavid, thank you for
imparting your Platonic wisdom and your love. For the other half of my mismatched pair,
Allison Connolly, I have so much gratitude. Vive les suffragettes! My family and friends
have been a source of constant love and support: Anita, Inez, Wesley, Casey, Cheryl,
Chuck, Lauren, Liz, and Paris. Thank you, Abby, for living through part of this process
with me and for our talks about books – in particular for sharing my ideas about the
modern day freak show. Hassan Melehy, I am so grateful to you for inspiring me and
pointing me in the most fascinating directions during the decade I’ve had the privilege to
be your student. Thank you for all of your knowledge, patience, and encouragement.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1

Always Already Queer French Renaissance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11

The Matter of My Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

CHAPTER 2: BORN THIS WAY: INTERSEXUALITY AND EARLY
MODERN GENDER WARS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26

“Filer ou écrire?”: France’s early modern gender crisis and the
Querelle des femmes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33

“Forcenées courir l’aiguillette”: Female sexuality, mother of
monstrous chaos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

“Par ce qu’elles en peuvent abuser”: Intersexuality and sex
determination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

“Remettre en estat de fille”: Hermaphrodites and the specter
of transvestism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Conclusion: Le coqu, specter of masculinity raté . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .61

CHAPTER 3: SISSY THAT WALK: TRANSGENDERED MASKING
AND MANLY WORKS IN HELISENNE DE CRENNE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .63

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .63

Persona docta: Hélisenne’s textual transvestment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

“Parlant en la personne de son ami Guenelic”: Hélisenne’s
performance of effeminate masculinity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

“Exerceant oeuvres viriles”: Female masculinity and the
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performance of virility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .86

Conclusion: “La diversité des meurs et conditions des hommes” . . . . . . . . . . . .96

CHAPTER 4: DUDE (LOOKS LIKE A LADY): AMBIGUOUS AMITIE
AND EFFEMINATE MASCULINITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .99

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .99

“En la place d’un roy, d’une putain fardee”: Sodomy, effeminate
masculinity, and Henri III . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .103

“Bien aymé compagnon”: Queering through Quezinstra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .112

“Ce fagotage de tant de diverses pieces”: Maternal Monstrosity
and Montaigne’s kinship of the book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

Conclusion: “Nous sommes pere et mere ensemble en
ceste generation”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

CHAPTER 5: MAN IN THE MIRROR: PATERNAL RESEMBLANCE
AND LEARNED KINSHIP IN MARIE DE GOURNAY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .147

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .147

“[L]a coucher par escrit”: Gournay’s Proumenoir as dialogue
with Montaigne . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .154

“Toute semblable à mon Pere”: networking, paternal resemblance,
and Gournay as daughter-friend . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

Conclusion: “Un accident de tres digne consideration” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .173

CHAPTER 6: BLURRED LINES: CAMILLA AND GOURNAY THE
LITERARY AMAZON . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

“[C]este orphelin qui m’estoit commis”: queer kinship and
Gournay’s editorial process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

“Ipse pater famulam vovit”: Camilla and the chaste
literary amazon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

Conclusion: “Parlons salement des ordures” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
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CHAPTER 7: Q.U.E.E.N.: CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
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