LATCH: A Journal for the Study of the Literary Vol. 1 Artifact in Theory, Culture, or History (2008)
That’s Not Funny: Comic Forms, Didactic Purpose, and Physical Injury in Medieval Comic Tales
Mary E. Leech The University of Cincinnati
Abstract Comedy, though often seen by the ancients as a lesser form of art, has a certain form and structure that audiences expect. Comedy serves an important social function. It alleviates social fears, draws a community together by defining its values, and often works as a critique of a culture in a non-threatening manner. The main way comedy is able to do this critique is by distancing the audience from actual pain and violence. However, one comic tale, the French “The Castrated Woman,” breaks many of these comic structures, in some ways almost working directly against the normal social goals of comedy. Part of the shrew-taming tradition, this tale presents violence that is unusually graphic. The masculine order within this tale is often subverted, calling into question the very foundation of patriarchal ideals. This study examines how this tale violates comic sensibilities, and what purpose these deviations may serve.
Keywords: comedy, women, violence, masculinity, class, fabliaux, medieval, shrew-taming, rhetoric, genre, social commentary
The purpose of comedy and the exact constitution of the comic have been queried by rhetoricians, artists, philosophers, and psychologists, from Aristotle down through Freud and Jung. In the ancient world, rhetoricians considered comedy the lowest form of rhetoric, a careful balancing act of creating pleasure in laughter without being offensive or vulgar. Since rhetoric and poetry were
105 Mary E. Leech That’s Not Funny: Comic Forms, Didactic pp. 105-27 Purpose, and Physical Injury in Medieval Comic Tales
seen by the ancients as having a didactic purpose, comedy was not usually the main concern of high or liberal art, primarily because comedy was seen as emphasizing the less appealing aspects of the human character. Because of this view of comedy, the content of comic works could be used for social commentary and criticism without fear of serious repercussions.1 In modern culture, comedy is presented as light entertainment, with dramatic stories and tragedies seen as the more serious form of art. Yet the satire of comedians such as George Carlin and Jon Stewart provides strong criticism of social standards. In this way, the comedy still challenges the audience to examine what it values and become more thoughtful about its principles. Generally speaking, comedy becomes comedy when a story portrays something or someone as deserving of ridicule. In constructing this perception of ridicule, the comedy draws the audience into a common experience and can work to build a sense of common values and common concerns. Comedy can also help to alleviate fear, as the audience is invited to laugh at what usually causes anxiety. In this way, the fears can be brought to the surface and faced in a non-threatening manner. Part of what makes these fears non-threatening is the distance the audience has from the material. Violence and horror become funny when there is no real danger, and the audience can laugh at what should be terrifying because there is a sense that no one is really hurt and that any implied pain is meant to be comical. Perhaps no form of literature illustrates the view of comedy as trivial better than the fabliaux. At times dismissed by critics as dirty stories with little literary value, the fabliaux have a wide range of topics, structures and themes that clearly demonstrate that the issues of comedic structure or purpose in these tales are not easily discerned or understood. The purpose of this study is to look at one particularly disturbing fabliau that seems to defy the standard forms of comedy of the time, and to discuss what the purpose of
1 Perhaps the best known comedies of the ancient world are those of Aristophanes. In his play The Clouds, Aristophanes challenges his audience to question the philosophy of prominent orators such as Socrates. In another play, Lysistrata, the playwright comments ironically on the purpose of war. These plays, though comedies, clearly attempt to critique certain cultural values and inform the audience of alternative viewpoints. 106 LATCH: A Journal for the Study of the Literary Vol. 1 Artifact in Theory, Culture, or History (2008)
this tale may be within the corpus of medieval comic literature. Does the breaking of comic expectations eliminate comic sensibilities? If a tale labeled as “fabliau” has the form but not the substance of the comic, what purpose does the tale serve in terms of audience? It is important to better establish what a fabliau is and how the genre is conceived. The usual definition of fabliaux, based on work by Joseph Bédier and Per Nykrog, characterizes fabliaux as short comedic tales, in verse, usually about obscene themes.2 Other standard features include lower class characters, an emphasis on cleverness, no conventional ethics or virtues, and often ironic morals at the end. The fabliaux also tend to have a subversive element to them, as the cleverer characters (peasants, wives) are often lower in status than the duped ones (nobility, husbands), and immoral characters triumph over the morally justified. However, none of these qualities is universal, and nearly any assumed rule about the fabliaux must be qualified within the range of material considered as fabliaux. The one quality that is normally seen as universal is the aspect of comedy, often obscene or scatological comedy. Even if the comedy is seen today as offensive or violent, the comedic element intended and its purpose within the historical and cultural contexts are usually apparent. The historical context of the fabliaux, particularly the Old French fabliaux, is a relatively short period during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Often, the fabliaux are viewed as a
2 Nykrog defines fabliaux as “C’est une poёme qui renferme le récit elegant d’une action inventée, petite, plus ou moins intrigue, quoique d’une certaine éntendue, mais agreeable ou plaisante, dont le but est instruire ou d’amuser” (xi). (“It is a poem which is comprised of a stylish narrative of inventive action, short , also less intrigue [possibly meaning that the plot is less complex] although with a certain intent, but agreeable while pleasing, which is meant to instruct while also amusing.”) Bédier describes the fabliaux as “comme les nomme un vieux texte, les fabellae ignobilium. Ils sont las poésie des petites gens. La réalisme terre á terre, une conception gaie et ironique de la vie, tous ces traits destinctifs des fabliaux” (371). (“[The fabliaux is] just as they named an old text, the ignoble fables. They are the poetry of the lower classes. They realize the commonplace, with cheery and ironic conceptions of life, these are the distinctive traits of the fabliaux.”) 107 Mary E. Leech That’s Not Funny: Comic Forms, Didactic pp. 105-27 Purpose, and Physical Injury in Medieval Comic Tales consequence of social upheaval, specifically the rise of the middle classes and the resulting loss of power for the upper classes. The origins, audience, and social dynamics of the fabliaux are also debated, although Charles Muscatine, commenting on Bédier and Nykrog’s insistence on a bourgeois centrality for the fabliaux, states:
[T]he flourishing of the fabliaux, the rise of the cities, and the emergence of an urban middle class are equally visible symptoms of the same social and spiritual climate. Some phases of fabliau mentality seem more characteristic of rural society than of urban; but it is a rural society that is being transformed by essentially the same forces that are creating a bourgeoisie. (5)
In other words, the unrest caused by the rise of the middle classes is similar to the unrest caused by the growth of cities and the loss to the rural work force. Muscatine’s point is that the social dynamics of the fabliaux cannot be limited to one cause. Just as what a fabliaux is can change from tale to tale, so must the origins of those variations be viewed as multi-faceted. Since comedy is one of the central features of what makes a fabliau a fabliau, it is important to get a clear idea of what the expectations of comic structure were during that time and how the fabliaux fit into these criteria. The rhetorical arts, including the comic, were influenced mainly by ancient Roman rhetorical standards, themselves being influenced by the Greeks.3 Aristotle
3 Nearly all ancient rhetoricians saw the rhetorical arts (oratory, argument, poetics) as didactic. The purpose of rhetoric was to persuade or teach, and the job of the orator was to attain knowledge. Oratory was in some ways seen as a calling to seek truth and to relate that truth to others. Cicero states in On Oratory and Orators, “[N]o man can be an orator possessed of every praiseworthy accomplishment, unless he has attained the knowledge of everything important […]. The qualifications of an orator, and his very profession of speaking well, seem to undertake and promise that he can discourse gracefully and copiously on whatever subject is proposed to him” (11). Knowledge was supposed to elevate, 108 LATCH: A Journal for the Study of the Literary Vol. 1 Artifact in Theory, Culture, or History (2008)
and Cicero both noted that comedy is often imitative, usually of the baser qualities of humans. Aristotle, in his “De Poetica,” called comedy “an imitation of men worse that the average […] in particular the Ridiculous, which is a species of the Ugly (mistake or deformity)” (1459). This form of the ridiculous, though, is not meant to cause harm, as Aristotle continues: “The Ridiculous may be defined as a mistake or deformity not productive of pain or harm to others” (1459). The base nature of comedy goes against the more intellectual goals of rhetoric in general, and so Aristotle makes it clear that comedy is acceptable only when it does not cause harm or undermine the nature of rhetorical purpose. In this same vein, Cicero is also cautious about the use of laughter in oratory: “But to what point the laughable should be carried by the orator requires very diligent consideration” (151). Besides the consideration for those who may be well regarded by the public, Cicero, like Aristotle, comments on the source of laughter (or comedy) in the baser qualities of human nature: “All matter for ridicule is therefore found to lie in defects observable in the characters of men not in universal esteem” (151).4 Cicero goes on to divide various forms of comedy, saying that “men are most delighted with a joke when the laugh is raised by the thought and the language in conjunction” (154). In other words, the more elevated form of laughter and joking is in the intellect, and the imitation of the lower classes and base human conduct is the lesser form of the comic. Cicero concludes this section by saying: “It is also to be observed that everything which is ridiculous is not witty” (155). Laughter, then, in order to be useful, must fit into the elements of oratory without debasing it or creating resentment in the audience. Donatus takes a slightly different view of comedy, as he categorizes comedy according to its purpose. He saw the imitative nature of comedy as having a didactic purpose. Comedy is a and comedy, particularly physical comedy, was seen as something that focused on the base nature of humans rather than on the intellect. 4 In addition to defects in the human character, Cicero also states that matter for ridicule can be found “in deformity, also, and bodily defects” and that the orator should avoid being tasteless, or falling into buffoonery (151). 109 Mary E. Leech That’s Not Funny: Comic Forms, Didactic pp. 105-27 Purpose, and Physical Injury in Medieval Comic Tales
“mirror of daily life” which involves “diverse arrangements of civic and private concerns, in which one learns what is useful in life and what on the contrary is to be avoided” (27). Donatus explains this instructive purpose further by saying “just as in gazing in a mirror we easily gather the features of truth through images, so also in the reading of comedy we see the reflection of life and custom without difficulty” (27). Like Cicero, Donatus divides comedy into different species, with fable or fabula being called “low-footed” because “of the lowness of its argument” (29).5 Even though Donatus sees comedy as possibly having value, it has value only when it helps to reveal truth. Base actions are presented as something to be avoided and comedy is only acceptable when it helps the audience better understand the higher aspects of human nature. In all of these descriptions of comedy and comic forms are seen as lesser forms, and something that a rhetorician should approach and use with caution. Today, there is still a concept of high comedy, or comedy that relies on cleverness of language or situation, and low comedy, which relies on sexual or scatological humor. Nearly all the classical rhetoricians emphasize the notion that for something to be comic, there should be no real depiction of pain. This notion is applied to both physical pain and social or mental anguish. This is not to say that pain cannot be funny but instead that it ceases to be funny when the pain becomes too real to the audience, or when it causes particular people shame or harm to their character. Again, this notion is also held today by the distinction between slapstick injuries versus depictions of real pain and suffering. More recent discussions of comedy and humor focus on the social and psychological needs that laughter fulfills. Rather than denigrating comedy that is focused on the aspects of humanity that are, as Cicero says, “not in universal esteem,” theorists explore philosophies about the pleasure involved in low humor. Freud, for example, discusses the nature of the comic as inherently comparative: “The origin of comic pleasure [is derived] from a comparison of another person with ourself, from the difference between our own psychical expenditure and the other person’s as estimated by empathy” (243). This comparison is necessary for the
5 Fable is also called “low footed” due to the type of shoe worn by the actors who perform it. 110 LATCH: A Journal for the Study of the Literary Vol. 1 Artifact in Theory, Culture, or History (2008)
creation of pleasure, which can then move outward to the external world and those things that have control over us, the power we can derive from putting someone else in comic situations, and imitating or caricaturizing others (243, 247-48). For Freud, then, the nature of the comic is to seek pleasure, and that pleasure is received when we place ourselves in a superior role, often at the expense of others. What undercuts this idea, however, is the fact that we are protecting our own psyche from the exposure presented while simultaneously understanding we could very easily be put in the same position. Should the situation become more real to us in that we actually feel the pain or imagine ourselves in that situation with horror, the comedy is lost, as is the pleasure associated with it. Another important element to this notion is that of comic unmasking, the revelation of flaws or weaknesses in someone believed to be superior in some way that are meant to produce humorous situations. Freud describes comic unmasking as “the method of degrading the dignity of individuals by directing attention to the frailties which they share with all humanity […]. The unmasking is equivalent here to an admonition: such and such a person who is admired […] is after all only human like you and me” (250-51). Once again there is an aspect of aggressiveness in Freud’s concept of the comic: the pleasure derived from the comic usually involves the control over another, either by making the other person appear ridiculous or hiding our own flaws in self- effacing humor. However, this aggressiveness must remain in the realm of the comic. For if the comic breaks the same social restrictions that it attempts to subvert, the situation is no longer comic. As Freud says, the pleasure of jokes resides in keeping the methods of those jokes safe from criticism, for “the objections raised by criticism […] would put an end to the pleasure” (159). Psychologically, then, humor fulfills a social function because it allows the audience to laugh at inner fears while reaffirming the accepted order of things. Theorist Henri Bergson states that “[l]aughter must answer to certain requirements of life in common. It must have social signification” (8). The purpose of the comic is to improve society without threatening it. As Bergson says, the comic
is that side of a person which reveals his likeness to a thing, that aspect of human events which, through its 111 Mary E. Leech That’s Not Funny: Comic Forms, Didactic pp. 105-27 Purpose, and Physical Injury in Medieval Comic Tales
peculiar inelasticity, conveys the impression of pure mechanism, of automatism, of movement without life. Consequently, it expresses and individual or collective imperfection which calls for an immediate corrective. This corrective is laughter. (87)
A society can laugh at its own lack of growth or development as long as it seems to be laughing at something else and not itself. It is the distance from what Bergson calls “mindfulness” that allows a culture to laugh at its own faults. If the joke hits too close to home, it is no longer funny.6 Perhaps the most cited source of comic purpose in recent years, particularly for imagery of the grotesque, is Mikhail Bakhtin. Bakhtin’s most succinct description of the concept of comic purpose is that “the sphere of imagery, cosmic fear (as any other fear) is defeated by laughter” (335). Bakhtin describes how the material body, particularly the parts that excrete, represent “cosmic catastrophe,” but because they are made grotesque, and therefore comic, “[t]error is conquered by laughter” (335). Comedy, then, serves the purpose of alleviating fears, mostly due to the absurdity of the images being presented. Part of what makes these images comic, and therefore not frightening, is the exaggerated and unrealistic qualities that are presented. Were these images more realistic, the fears would no longer be laughable. What is perceived as funny or humorous varies according to cultural sensibilities as well as the passage of time. Many concepts that were once staples of comedy, particularly during classical, medieval, and Early Modern times, are considered unfunny or offensive today. Within the cultural and historical framework, though, a modern audience can often recognize comedic elements of a text, even if those elements are no longer considered amusing.
6 Max Eastman conveys a similar idea in his second law of good and bad jokes: “The feelings aroused in the person who is expected to laugh must not be too strong and deep” (92). In other words, the audience must have a certain emotional distance from the joke, or the joke becomes too personal and therefore not funny. 112 LATCH: A Journal for the Study of the Literary Vol. 1 Artifact in Theory, Culture, or History (2008)
For example, in the Old French tale “The Snow Child,”7 a man returns home after three years to find his wife with a small child. She claims that she got pregnant by eating a snowflake, but the husband is not fooled. He takes the child on a trip with him, and sells the child into slavery. When he gets back, he tells his wife that the climate where he went was too hot, and the child melted. Though the notion of selling a child into slavery is not funny, particularly to a modern audience, the tale can still be seen as humorous. The lunacy of the situation removes all sense of realism. The audience ignores the horror of selling a child into slavery and focuses on the stupidity of the wife’s excuse and the cleverness of the husband in getting back at her. In another more violent tale, “The Crucified Priest,” a priest is having an affair with the wife of a sculptor. When the sculptor arrives home early, the priest hides in the workshop, where the sculptor is making a life-sized crucifix. The priest, already naked, climbs up on the cross, but the sculptor is not fooled. On seeing the priest, the sculptor feigns horror at having carved genitals on the figure of Christ, and cuts them off. The priest escapes after being castrated, but is caught by two other men, beaten, and forced to pay a high ransom. In “The Priest Who Lost His Balls,” a smith takes revenge on a priest who had an affair with his wife by nailing the priest’s scrotum to the workbench, giving him a razor, and setting the workshop on fire. The priest must slice off his testicles to escape, which he does. After a long convalescence, the priest seeks retribution in the courts, but the court rules against him. In both these tales, even though the priests undergo terrible mutilation, the tales do not lose their contemporary comic element. In some ways, the adulterous priests earn what they get, and the audience takes the side of the cleverer, wronged husbands. The priests suffer other humiliations as well, with one priest having to pay a high ransom, and the other by having his mutilation justified in the courts. The priests appear to get what they deserve for breaking their vows of celibacy by committing adultery. There is an element of quid pro quo, as the offending body parts are removed, and most importantly, the pain is not portrayed as real.
7 For the purposes of this essay, I am using the most commonly used English titles of these stories. 113 Mary E. Leech That’s Not Funny: Comic Forms, Didactic pp. 105-27 Purpose, and Physical Injury in Medieval Comic Tales
There are no gruesome details, no long descriptions of suffering. The audience allows itself to laugh because they are once again distanced from realistic aspects of torture and cruelty, especially since the priests appear to recover without any long term effects. Yet one tale labeled as fabliau breaks many of these comic sensibilities, and in doing so may be confirming the very fears the story should be trying to assuage. The tale is “The Castrated Woman”8 or “The Gelded Lady.” In this tale, a count goes hunting but stays out too late. He asks a local nobleman to stay at his home. The nobleman is willing but hesitates because of his overbearing wife. To get around his wife, the nobleman orders exactly the opposite of what he, the nobleman, really wants, the wife overturns the order, and thus the count gets to stay and have a sumptuous meal. The count falls in love with the nobleman’s daughter and marries her. Before the girl leaves, her mother advises her not to be mild but instead to take control over her new husband. The count determines to counter this advice. The nobleman has given the count two greyhounds, but when they do not catch a rabbit fast enough for the count, he cuts off their heads in front of his new wife. He also beheads a palfrey that stumbles after he commands it not to trip. Despite these warnings, the new wife deliberately orders the cook to over-season the count’s food, against his express wishes. When he finds out his wife has done this, the count first mutilates the cook and then beats his wife with a thorn branch so that it takes her three months to recover.9 In the meantime, the nobleman and his wife come to visit. The count sends the nobleman out hunting, and while he is gone the count tells his servants to castrate a bull and bring him the balls. He then tells his mother-in-law that her pride is in her testicles,10
8 The title in Old French is “La dame escolliee.” 9 “Iluec jut ele bien .iii. mois / qu’ele ne pot seoir as dois.” (“It was three months / that she could not sit at table.”) The emphasis is not just on the length of time but also on how long she is unable to fulfill her duties as wife. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations in the footnotes are mine. I chose to have literal translations that are less elegant rather than more polished ones, in order to get across, as much as possible, the exact structure and meaning of the language. 10 The medical understanding of the day included the idea that women had a type of testicles, but that they were much smaller than a man’s. In 114 LATCH: A Journal for the Study of the Literary Vol. 1 Artifact in Theory, Culture, or History (2008)
which he will now remove. Holding the mother down, a servant slices a six inch gash in one buttock, shoves in his fist with one of the bull testicles, and pulls the fist back out. He does the same for the other side, while the mother screams, and “cele se pasme qui fu meu” (line 488).11 When she recovers, the count says that if she does not do as she is told, he will burn out the roots of her testicles with a hot iron coulter. The count shows his wife what he has done to her mother, and says he will do the same to her if she is disobedient. The wife swears she is more like her father than her mother,12 and that she will obey him from now on. When the nobleman returns, he is told the same story, and shown the pail with the bloody balls in it. Once the mother swears to obey her husband, her wounds are then treated and she recovers. The tale ends with a moral that praises the count’s actions and calls for shame on men who are ruled by their wives and on women who would dominate their husbands.13 “The Castrated Woman” breaks the contemporary rules of comedy and some of the basic tenets of fabliaux. Shrew-taming tales, tales in which violence was used to subdue an unruly wife, were popular for centuries.14 While the shrew-taming stories in
the context of the story, what is making the mother too forward is not that she has testicles, but that they are oversized for a woman. The removal of the “female” testicles, then, as with the removal of the male testicles, would make the person, in this case a woman, more submissive and less “manly.” 11 Literally, “she faints letting out a wail.” 12 “Ge ne sui pas de la nature / ma mere, qui est fiere & dure; / ge retrai plus, sire, a mon pere / que ge ne faz voir a ma mere” (lines 517- 20). (“I do not share the nature / of my mother, who is fierce and stubborn; / I have more, sir, of my father / than the semblance of my mother.”) 13 “Honi soient, & il si ierent, / cil qui lour fames trop dangierent!” (lines 567-68). (“Men shame themselves if they will be [dominated by wives] / which makes wives very dangerous.”) 14 The most famous of these tales is of course Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, in which Katherine attempts to gain control over her husband, only to have Petruchio teach her the way to be a proper wife. This tale is unusual in its absence of any physical violence to Katherine. Though it is clear she suffers from hunger, fatigue, and sleep deprivation, 115 Mary E. Leech That’s Not Funny: Comic Forms, Didactic pp. 105-27 Purpose, and Physical Injury in Medieval Comic Tales
general were meant as comical, and this one does have some of the typical shrew-taming elements in it, the question is whether the story transgresses comedic rules enough to undermine the comedy. Though it is nearly impossible to know how a contemporary audience would have reacted to this story,15 there are aspects in it that test the boundaries of comedic story telling. One unusual element in this tale as both a comedy and a fabliau is that these characters are noble. Also, while the characters may not be brilliant, there is some cleverness and wit in all the characters, even those who are so severely punished. The mother is calculating, and while her husband does outwit her, it is the husband who suffers humiliation as a consequence of this, and not the wife. The daughter is possibly the least clever of the four main characters, yet she learns her lesson very quickly and will presumably be happier for it. The count and the nobleman, who win in the end by having obedient wives, are not rewarded for cleverness, as is usual in the fabliaux. In fact, the nobleman wins by default rather than by any real cleverness or power over his wife. Shrew-taming tales that are not fabliaux put the fault on the woman and her desire to dominate. There may be an implication that the husband is at fault, but this fault is corrected by his taming of his wife. This tale puts the blame squarely on the husband who allows her to rule him. The tale states, “Mais tant avoit amé s’osser / Que desor lui l’avoit levee / & segnorie abandonee” (lines 28- 30).16 The nobleman himself says: “ge ne li sui fors chape a pluie (line 100).17 In the typical shrew-taming tale, the husband is desperate to find some way of controlling his wife. This is not the
Petruchio never beats her though he clearly has no qualms about beating his servants. 15 In general, French stories can be considered more earthy than their counterparts in other cultures, particularly the English stories. Images of sexuality are more common, as are portrayals of sexual misconduct. This could possibly indicate a higher tolerance for such imagery in the audiences for the French tales, but the structure and images of “The Castrated Woman” are so extreme that the reception by any audience as well as intended purpose bears exploration. 16 “Because he loved his wife so / much he let her be raised up / and abandoned his authority.” 17 “I am nothing to her but an outer coat for rain.” 116 LATCH: A Journal for the Study of the Literary Vol. 1 Artifact in Theory, Culture, or History (2008)
case with the nobleman in “The Castrated Woman.” He seems perfectly happy with the solution. To the contemporary audience, the nobleman’s solution would be troubling. Men were supposed to be the moral center for women, and husbands were morally responsible for their wives.18 If a husband rules his wife only by subversion, is he really fulfilling his duty as a husband? How can masculine order be maintained if the husband does not know how to act like a man? The threat to masculinity here is in the behavior of the man, not the woman. Though it is another man who corrects the problem, it is not the appropriate person in this situation. The true winner of the tale, the count, wins more out of violence than any true cleverness. The idea of castrating his mother-in-law is clever within the context of the fabliaux, but this solution comes after he has savagely beaten his own wife. The mood from the start of the tale is less comic and more threatening than the typical shrew taming tale. For example, the killing of the hounds and the horse set an unusual tone for a comic tale. Hounds in general were prized for hunting, and greyhounds most of all, not just because of their prowess in the hunt, but also, according to Edward, Duke of York in Master of Game, “an hounde is of greet wurthynes and of greet sotilte […] and hounde is of good obeysaunce, for he wil lerne as a man al that a man wil teche him” (qtd. in Cummins 12).19 In other words, the obedience was key to the greyhound’s value. Still, the count’s orders to the dogs and horse were unreasonable, especially given that dogs and horses lack reason. There is also an element of danger in here. The way the story is set up, the new wife will most certainly disobey or try to dominate her husband. Does he mean to do the same to his wife if
18 Admonitions about a husband’s responsibility for his wife’s spiritual well being as well as his dominance over her can be found in the epistles of Paul, particularly Ephesians. Other theological figures of the early Christian world, particularly Augustine, expressed similar sentiments, believing that the man gave a child its soul, while the woman gave the child its imperfect flesh. 19 Most hunting manuals, according to Cummins, list the greyhound as a particularly prized animal in hunting, mainly for its speed, obedience, and ability in catching a variety of quarry. See in particular Cummins 12- 15. 117 Mary E. Leech That’s Not Funny: Comic Forms, Didactic pp. 105-27 Purpose, and Physical Injury in Medieval Comic Tales
she disobeys? Neither of these images seems to fall into categories of the comic. Instead, at this point, the tale seems vaguely ominous. Perhaps the most egregious transgression of comedic storytelling in the tale is the detail of the torture performed on the count’s wife and mother-in-law. The wife is beaten with a thorn branch, and she is bed-ridden for three months. Unlike other tales with violence, she does not get back up, nor does she go on to other comic misadventures. She all but disappears until her mother is tortured and she is further threatened into obedience. With the mother, each step of the faked castration is given:
.i. des serjanz le rasoir prant, Demi pié la nache li fent, Son poig i met enz & tot clos .i. des coillons au tor molt gros, Ça & la tire, & ele brait. (lines 473-77)20
The threat of further violence is detailed as well. An iron coulter is heated and the count says it will be inserted into the wounds to cauterize the roots of the testicles. It is implied that the coulter would be kept in the wound for awhile to make sure everything was burned out:
Mais ge dout qu’aucune racine N’i remaigne se nel quisinne… Or tost! .i. costre m’eschaufez dont les racines arderez! (lines 493-96)21
Like the daughter, the mother does not go on to other misadventures, but in fact remains maimed on the ground until her husband returns and she swears to be obedient. Only then are her wounds tended, and the story does emphasize that the wounds
20 “One of the servants took a razor, / and made a cut half a foot long. / He put his hand inside the entire enclosure / and the very large bull testicles / there drew out and she cried out (brayed).” 21 “Yet I think some roots / may remain unless cauterized […] / now quickly! Heat me a coulter / so that I can burn out the roots!” 118 LATCH: A Journal for the Study of the Literary Vol. 1 Artifact in Theory, Culture, or History (2008)
were not fatal.22 These details are perhaps the most troubling part of the story, and break the cardinal rule of comedy that was given by classical rhetoricians: there should be no pain. It is not so much that the women in this tale suffer. In shrew-taming tales, beatings are common, as is prolonged torture. In the ballad “A Merry Jeste of a Shrewd and Curst Wife,” the wife is beaten and wrapped in a salted horse hide until she swears to behave. While an audience today would not find this song particularly comical, the beating and torture are not described in detail. In fact, while she is wrapped in the skin, the emphasis is on her thoughts of how she has wronged her husband, and not her physical pain.23 In “The Castrated Woman” tale, though, the meticulous catalog of torture makes the violence more real. Even with the assurances that the women are cared for and recover, the overlong descriptions of the violence take away from any comic intent. With these issues in mind, we need to return to the problematic questions of whether or not “The Castrated Woman” can really be considered comic within the framework of both comedic rhetoric and fabliaux structure. In the fabliaux tradition, it is the primary transgressor who normally suffers the worst punishment. The transgression in the tale does not have to be moral, and often the least moral character triumphs, but there is always a clear
22 “La soirement & la fiance / fist la dame sanz demorance; ses plaies li font reloier / & la letiere apareillier, si l’enportent sor .ii. chevaus. Ses plaies ne sont mas mortaus; / bone mire ot qui bien la gari” (lines 555-61). (“The oath and troth / made the lady without delay; the wounds he had bound / and got a litter, which was suspended between two horses. The wounds were not fatal, / for she had a physician who healed them well.”) 23 The ballad says: “Within a while, she did reuiue, / Through the grose salte that did her smarte / She though she should neuer haue gone on lieu, / Out of Morels skin so sore is her harte.” When she berates her husband for his cruelty, he says that he will keep her there to “wayle and weepe.” The song then says: “With that her moode began to sinke, / And sayd deare husband for grace I call: / For I shall neuer sleepe nor winke, / Till I get your loue whatso befall” (“A Merry Jeste”). The implication here is that the physical pain does not change her ways as much as the idea that she is not loved by her husband. Any mention of pain is minimal, and she seems to be no worse for wear once she is taken out of the salted hide. 119 Mary E. Leech That’s Not Funny: Comic Forms, Didactic pp. 105-27 Purpose, and Physical Injury in Medieval Comic Tales transgression or act of stupidity that leads to punishment or humiliation. This transgression is most often part of the comedy in the fabliaux. In “The Castrated Woman,” the main transgressor is the nobleman. He is the one who does not fulfill his role as a masculine authority or performer. However, the nobleman suffers the least, and wins control of his wife through the actions of another. The perception of the nobleman as incompetent and feminized has not really changed, and he has shown no ability for acceptable masculine performance or cleverness to deserve his reward. Had the count not married the daughter, the nobleman’s situation would not have changed. Therefore, the comedy of the shrew taming is undermined by the masculine authority figure who supposedly reestablishes proper order. This point brings up another issue of the comic. The count takes over because the husband is seen as incompetent, but in usurping the place of the nobleman in controlling the mother-in- law, has the count upset the necessary confirmation of the worldview which should be represented by the nobleman’s performance? If he has, his actions have challenged the nature of masculine authority. Rather than making the fear laughable, he has affirmed the very fear that needs to be overcome in order for the comedy to be pleasurable and satisfying to the audience. Instead of reestablishing masculine authority through proper performance, the count substitutes his own performance. The male body of the nobleman, who is husband to the main shrew and father-in-law to the count, is only dominant on the surface. The count’s reaffirmation of his own authority of performance and the world order it represents is made imperfect and superficial in the eyes of the audience, who clearly see the delusion of authority in the nobleman’s situation. The purpose of the masculine performance in this medieval tale is closely related to then-current concepts of the world. D. Vance Smith, in an article titled “Body Doubles: Producing the Masculine Corpus,” relates the perception of the male body to how the order of the world was organized: “The medieval male body […] is caught between production and representation. It stands, in many ways, for the larger world; but it is also responsible, in part, for producing and maintaining that world” (5). The male body’s importance goes beyond the physical, representing instead the ideal that the world should be. If that body does not perform to the 120 LATCH: A Journal for the Study of the Literary Vol. 1 Artifact in Theory, Culture, or History (2008)
needed expectations, world order is challenged. In “The Castrated Lady,” the nobleman’s body is not performing correctly, and the structure of what that body represents, both individually and in a larger world view, is threatened. The interference of the nobleman’s wife, particularly in his need to work around her authority to get what he wants, feminizes, or castrates the nobleman and gives his wife the role of masculine authority.24 In this way, masculine authority is misplaced, the role performed by the nobleman is incorrect, and the accepted world view is endangered. The count’s role, then, should be a sort of decastration of the nobleman and the reestablishment of proper masculine authority. And the methods used in this tale should be, for the sake of comedy, exaggerated and ridiculous, so that this fear can be made laughable. While the methods are definitely exaggerated, they do not seem to be ridiculous or particularly laughable. Since the nobleman does not really learn to be a man and is instead given his authority by the count, what does this say about masculinity and what masculinity represents? Is this part of the comedic in the tale? The count is said in the moral to have done a good deed, and that shame should come to those who let wives rule them. Once again the traits of the fabliaux are muddled here, as the nobleman does nothing to deserve what he gets in the end, and the moral would seem to indicate that the honor goes to the count and not the nobleman. Likewise, the count did not endure a shrewish wife, yet he takes all the action that leads to the resolution at the end. It does not seem likely the daughter would have dominated the count, and like his other actions, his lesson to his wife reeks of excess. Is masculine performance with the correlating world view dangerous if taken too far? Is either man a proper example of masculine authority? For Freud, obscene or sexual jokes are particularly aggressive in nature, primarily towards women. The teller of such jokes reveals sexual excitement, which the object of the joke is expected to somehow return. Also, obscene jokes titillate by revealing the sexuality of the body and the accompanying shame associated with that sexuality: “By the utterance of the obscene words it [an
24 The beheading of the nobleman’s gifts by the count can be interpreted as a type of castration, which further feminizes the nobleman. 121 Mary E. Leech That’s Not Funny: Comic Forms, Didactic pp. 105-27 Purpose, and Physical Injury in Medieval Comic Tales
obscene joke] compels the person who is assailed to imagine the part of the body or the procedure in questions and shows her that the assailant is himself imagining it” (Freud 116). To take Freud a step further, I say that the aggressive nature of sexual humor, most often directed at women, can be seen as a method of controlling female sexuality25 through the exposure of sexual feelings that the objects of these jokes presumably also feel. The comic element of shrew-taming tales follows Freud and Bakhtin’s notions of the comic as a method of psychological pleasure, in which fears are made ridiculous or laughable so they can be overcome. The fear in the standard shrew-taming tale is that the woman will gain dominance over her husband or take his place (both within the household and also in the larger social sphere). Through the comic overpowering of the transgressive wife, the male figure is reestablished in his proper role as the main authority, and the superior nature of the male social role is confirmed as well. Therefore, it is important that the wife be tamed, but just as important that the husband is the one who tames her. The husband’s taming of his wife through physical violence is seen as justified by the contemporary audience, perhaps as a modern-day audience may expect comic violence today to be somehow justified. Masculine performance and its regulation of female performance thus become the primary goals of the comedy in the shrew-taming tales and the establishment this power is played out primarily on
25 The idea that obscenity is aggressive and possibly works to sexually dominate a body forms an interesting relationship to Foucault’s discussion on how disciplining a body is a way to establish power over that body. As Foucault states, “Discipline increases the forces the body (in economic terms of utility) and diminishes these same forces (in political terms of obedience). In short, it dissociates power from the body; on the one hand, it turns it into an ‘aptitude’, a ‘capacity’, which it seeks to increase; on the other hand, it reverses the course of energy, the power that might result from it, and turns it into a relation of strict subjugation” (138). In a Foucauldian interpretation, the shrew-taming tale works to create, or reestablish, the economic and political control of the male body over the female one. Through the discipline and the resulting subjugation of the female body, the male role as authority figure, both as husband and social power, is maintained. 122 LATCH: A Journal for the Study of the Literary Vol. 1 Artifact in Theory, Culture, or History (2008)
the female body.26 With these elements in mind, can one still consider this tale comic, even within contemporary standards? The excessive nature of the count’s punishments is startling, especially since they go beyond what is necessary within the tale. The count makes sure his wife sees the results of her mother’s behavior, and the count’s wife backs down immediately, which tells us that the original beating he gave his wife probably did the trick. By showing his mother-in- law’s fake castration to his wife, the count reaffirms his masculine authority over his wife, and she acquiesces. The question then becomes which of the two shrews is being tamed, the wife of the nobleman or her daughter? Once again, the count’s reestablishment of masculine authority has another side. The source of the daughter’s improper performance is used by him to control the daughter and solidify his own authority. The nobleman really does not figure in this at all and is in some ways irrelevant to the story’s possible lesson. If the daughter is the main shrew, so to speak, and the mother is tortured only to control the daughter, the daughter must be the cosmic fear that Bakhtin says the comic grotesque is meant to alleviate. This scenario does not really seem to fit the story, as the daughter is never a serious threat to the count in the same way that the mother-in-law is to her husband. The question of whether or not “The Castrated Woman” can be considered comic still remains. Even within the misogyny of the time period, the tale is excessive and in places even unnecessarily violent towards female agency. The story continues to impose on the feminine performance long after the usual goal of such tales is achieved. The performance of masculinity is played out by the wrong character, which would seem to undermine the whole structure of male authority. Yet despite the tale’s gruesomeness and
26 Judith Butler explains the relationship between gender and performance as “the repeated stylization of the body, a set of repeated acts within a highly rigid regulatory frame that congeal over time to produce the appearance of substance, of a natural sort of being” (43-44). The “danger” of the feminine is vanquished in the comic violence, so that the performance of gender conforms to social expectations, though not necessarily to social reality. 123 Mary E. Leech That’s Not Funny: Comic Forms, Didactic pp. 105-27 Purpose, and Physical Injury in Medieval Comic Tales
inconsistencies, there are comic and fabliaux elements to the story. There is the juxtaposition of male and female body parts, and the joke that a woman’s shrewish behavior is caused by overlarge testicles. There are also the humorous elements of a man who gets his wife to do what he wants by ordering her to do the exact opposite, and of a wife who thinks she is ruling the household when in fact she is being manipulated by her husband. Though the violence is troubling, the comedic ending of a properly tamed shrew prevails. Cleverness may not be the central part of the triumph in the end, but the count’s plan can be viewed as clever. The very essence of a castration plot against a woman is fabliaux in nature, as it deals with sexual humor and damage to improperly used genitals. Also, the mixed roles of masculine behavior fit into the social satire that is often a part of fabliaux tales. The moral at the end is somewhat more appropriate to the tale than many morals in the fabliaux, but a sense of irony can still be seen, especially given the brutal nature of the taming and the ambiguous status of the nobleman at the end. On the other hand, these elements are more surface than substance. The fabliaux offer satire and social commentary, but any moral guidelines in the fabliaux are almost always set up within each fabliau itself. What is moral in one tale will be immoral or punished in another.27 The emphasis in an average fabliau is on cleverness, not morality, or class, or knowing one’s place. In many ways, the comedy in the fabliaux stems from an undermining of social norms and behaviors. Unfaithful wives succeed in fooling
27 In direct contrast to the tales of husbands who get back at priests (cited earlier in this article) is the tale “The Friar’s Pants.” In this story, an adulterous priest leaves his pants behind as he escapes from his lover’s house, and when the husband accidentally wears the pants, he accuses his wife of adultery. The wife tells the husband that she got the pants to put under her pillow because she had a dream that this is how she would conceive a child. The husband checks out the story with another priest, who is instructed to go along with the story. When the second priest confirms the story, the husband apologizes to his wife. This story completely subverts any moral continuity by having the wife get away with adultery, and having the two priests complicit in the deception. In typical fabliaux fashion, there is no conventional moral code in this tale. The cleverest person “wins” and the foolish one is humiliated. 124 LATCH: A Journal for the Study of the Literary Vol. 1 Artifact in Theory, Culture, or History (2008)
their husbands or in making their husbands fools. Lovers punish cuckolded husbands just as often as husbands punish illicit lovers. Peasants trick clergy and nobles. If anything, when a fabliau ends with an explicit moral, it often subverts the general purpose of a moral, as the morals at the end of a fabliau more often than not have little to do with the tale. “The Castrated Woman” has a general moral focus that is typical in the shrew-taming tales, as well as a moral at the end that reflects the overt message of the story. The wife has stepped outside her boundaries and must be put in her place. As stated earlier, masculine authority through performance of the male body must be reestablished through the control of the transgressive female body, and it is usually through some kind of physical punishment that the wife is corrected and returned to her proper role: obedient and submissive. But at the end of this particular tale, it is the structure of the tale rather than the ending platitude that seemingly overturns the very structures the comedy should be confirming. The underlying subversion of general conceptions is typical of fabliaux structure. Still, the lack of a deserving winner is problematic. If “The Castrated Women” is meant as a morality tale for masculinity, the morality is set on a very shaky foundation. If this story is meant to function as true comedy, what are the fears here? It does not seem to be the threat of feminine dominance, which is the usual aspect of the shrew taming tale. The call to masculine control is undermined by the utter lack of change in anything the nobleman does. The stronger masculine figure has in essence treated the submissive nobleman as the count treats his wife: here is the evidence of what was wrong, and now things are as they should be. In this sense, the stronger masculine figure has not taught anything to the other but rather has reinforced the submissive role he has played throughout the tale. The only difference is that the appearance of masculine authority has been maintained. This tale leaves more questions than it answers. It does follow the surface form of comedy, but the narrative itself follows the surface form of masculine authority. It follows some cursory aspects of fabliaux, but its actual subversion of the structure of the traditional fabliaux is perhaps the its most fabliaux aspect. As a 125 Mary E. Leech That’s Not Funny: Comic Forms, Didactic pp. 105-27 Purpose, and Physical Injury in Medieval Comic Tales
comedy, it is on many levels unsatisfying and breaks key elements of comedic form. The psychological pleasure of the tale in overcoming fears is minimal, especially since any fears that may be presented in the tale still exist in some form or another at the end. Consequently, as a fabliau, it breaks more traditions than it follows. Perhaps the author intended to question the role of comedy in the tradition of both fabliaux and shrew-taming tales and thus, on a deeper level, to question the social fears and values that produce these kinds of stories. Will the fear of losing masculinity make someone willing to overstep established social boundaries to maintain at least the form of authority and control? Does laughing at these fears truly help in facing these fears and overcoming them, or are the roots of these fears always there even as we laugh at them? At the time this tale was written, the class structure was in flux and social structures that had been in place for centuries were changing. This flux no doubt created social anxiety, particularly for those classes that were losing power. The social structures this tale should reinforce are shown to be far less stable than the tale’s ending would indicate. It is possible that this tale reflects the fears of the time in terms of social stability while also demonstrating to the audience that these structures were fissured and in need of change.
Works Cited Aristotle. “De Poetica.” The Basic Works of Aristotle. Trans. and ed. Richard McKeon. New York: Modern Library, 2001. Bakhtin, Mikhail. Rabelais and His World. Trans. Hélène Iswolsky. Bloomington: U of Indiana P, 1984. Bédier, Joseph. Les Fabliaux: Etudes de Litérature Populaire et d’Histoire Littéraire du Moyen Age. 6th ed. Paris: Librairie Honoré Champion, 1964. Bergson, Henri. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Trans. Cloudesley Brereton and Fred Rothwell. New York: MacMillan, 1928. Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge, 1999. Cicero. On Oratory and Orators. Trans. and ed. J. S. Watson. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1970.
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Cummins, John. The Hound and the Hawk: The Art of Medieval Hunting. London: Phoenix P, 1988. Donatus. “A Fragment on Comedy and Tragedy.” Trans. George Miltz. Theories of Comedy. Ed. Paul Lauter. Garden City: Anchor Books, 1964. 27-32. Eastman, Max. The Sense of Humor. New York: Charles Schribner’s Sons, 1921. Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York: Pantheon, 1977. Freud, Sigmund. Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious. Trans. and ed. James Strachey. New York: Norton, 1960. Klages, Mary. “Jacques Lacan.” Modern Critical Thought. Course Home Page. Aug 2001 - Dec 2001. Dept. of English, U of Colorado at Boulder. 27 Jan. 2008
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