woot!

[highlyeccentric]

i discovered a whole new corner of anglo-saxonate fun! and with not a single saint in sight nor any dirty jokes. This is something to be celebrated, i feel.

Anyway. more on the Alfredian Boethius in the next few weeks. Consider yourselves warned.

Comments

[niamh-sage.livejournal.com]

Ok, for some reason, I read: Consider yourselves warned.

as

Consider yourself normal.

Fine, I will. But will it help? :D

(did JRRT have anything to do with that realm of study, by the way? I'm sure I recognise it, and I'm just reading his Letters at the moment...)

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

hmmm, i didn't think so. i certainly don't have him on my paper trail for the essay.
however, that doesn't mean he didn't teach it, think about it, read about it, refer to it in the context of something else he wrote about, or publish stuff i haven't found yet ;)

[lepsdavid.livejournal.com]

Consider yourselves warned.

Duly Noted.

[phrasemuffin.livejournal.com]

Hello, Universal Mother type :P
Thought I'd let you know your advice of water and sleep seems to have done much goodness, thank you very much. Am now all recovery-like :D

And what is this new corner? AND HOW COULD IT NOT HAVE DIRTY JOKES?! They lived for those jokes!

p.s. is anglo-saxonate a real word?

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

Glad to hear it ;)

i don't really think they did...

i found a book in stack, in the anglo-saxon section, called "before the closet". Must read that, it looks like a laugh. Suspect it's another product of the modern confusion between homosocial and homosexual, but should be amusing. (isn't that a great distinction? Melanie made it the other day)

well, the other option is "anglo-saxonistic" or just plain "anglo-saxon", i suppose

[phrasemuffin.livejournal.com]

Well, we can't be certain, but there's no point denying you credit when there's no one else to give it to.

And what exactly is the distinction? We were looking at an article in Music and Gender that spoke about homosocial tendencies in 12th Century compositions by Hildegard (or something like that), and I had no idea what it was on about. And, being gay myself, I didn't want to ask in front of the other gay guy. Of course, there's no certainty that he knew, but whatever. What is it???

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

Homosocial comes from the latin homo, meaning man- so, the society of men. Buddy buddy lets all get drunk in the beer-hall and tell everyone about our exploits. Or what the SMH life and style is now calling "bromance". Etc, etc

Homosexual is in fact a modern misspelling of homeo-sexual, from the same root as homoegenous, meaning the same.

Homosexaul men can participate in homosocial activities, but homosexual women cannot. They could join straight women for an afternoon of gynosociality, i suppose.

[phrasemuffin.livejournal.com]

ah, right. Well, seeing as we were looking at lesbianism in this nuns religious/devotional compositions to Mary, I guess "homosocial" doesn't quite fit in, huh?

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

erm, maybe your teacher is kinda making up the meaning ;)

i know Hildegaard (damn, i wish i were a catholic... i want Hildegaard for my saint's name!). tell me what this "homosocial" thing apparently is and i'll see if i can explain it.

[phrasemuffin.livejournal.com]

I think she was just trying to explain what the author, Susan McClary quoting Terry Castle referring to Sylvia Warner, meant.

The quote:
"To theorize about female-female desire... is precisely to envision the taking apart of this supposedly intractable patriarchal structure [i.e. the male homosocial triangle]. Female bonding, at least hypothetically, destablises the "canonical" triangular arrangement of male desire, is an affront to it, and ultimately - in the radical form lesbian bonding - displaces it entirely... The male-female-male erotic triangle remains stable only as long as its single female term is unrelated to any other female term. Once two female terms are conjoined in space, however, an alternative structure comes into being, a female-male-female triangle, in which one of the male terms from the original triangle now occupies the in-between or subjugated position of the mediator... Within this new female homosocial structure, the possibility of male bonding is radically suppressed: for the male term is now isolated, just as the female term was in the male homosocial structure. [Castle 1992, 132-33].

It then goes on to say how Hildegard's music shows she's a lesbian for Mary, despite her being extremely conservative and well-known for her anti-homosexuality stance.

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

aha, that's *exactly* what i mean by no one making the distinction.

"To theorize about female-female desire... is precisely to envision the taking apart of this supposedly intractable patriarchal structure [i.e. the male homosocial triangle].
patriarchal society is sustained by bonds between men- homosociality. (as it turns out, she, like many others, infers homosexuality with that)

this new female homosocial structure here, she means both gynosocial and homosexual. and so on she goes- working on the assumption that all powerful bonds between members of the same sex must be in some way sexualised.

which, i guess, is just an equal-opportunity application of the theory that all intergender relations have a sexual element.

aha, yes... Marianism *does* get outrageously erotic in this period. something which deserves a lot more investigation than just slapping the "lesbian" label on Hildegard.
Bernard of Clairvaux was big in the formation of eroticised Marianism. his Cistercian monks took Mary as their saint, and boy, their devotion to her is mindboggling.
But the nature of eroticism in the twelfth century is funny, to say the least. What seems to us to be really randy imagery is happily used to express all sorts of deep platonic and religious affection. Remember my randy monks and nuns last semester?

if you're interested in this sort of thing, i recommend Bernard of Clairvaux & the cistercian office as a good starting point. I know B. wrote hymns, uncertain if they've survived.

Baudri of Bourgeil is a good source for non-marian (non)erotic poetry.

also, with Hildegard- i have a feeling (unsubstantiated) that Mary wasn't the only one she wrote highly charged works for. sexualised imagery for God/Jesus is popular too.

The Mystic Marriage is a great one- also tracing back to Bernard. The soul is female, right, and it gets to marry Jesus. Good ole Bertie doesn't seem to have been the least worried by becoming Christ's "wife".
By a little later in the period, mystic marriage develops as a complete tradition, particularly for women mystics. Catherine of Sienne married Christ in a vision and took his foreskin as her ring.

[phrasemuffin.livejournal.com]

that last one is seriously wrong. seriously. and did she still have the "ring" when she woke up, or did she have to go out and find one?

And yes, we saw that some of her stuff was indeed directed at eroticising the males too.

you seem very well conected in this area, so I may have to hit you up for some ideas and/or links and/or authors for my final essay... if I ever find out what it's on.

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

she still had it.

no one else could see it, though. convenient, that.

feel free ;) i love bashing on about medieval sex, and well you know it.

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

[/end medievalist rant here]

as far as music and gender goes- Hidegard is interesting, because she wrote semi-plays to be performed in her nunnery.
usually in the liturgy, male monks get to play/sing all the charcaters- the women at the tomb was a very popular liturgial tableau.
I'm sure learnt in Wanky History about Hildegard's nuns play/singing women roles themselves, but i can't for the life of me remember if they got a preist in to play Jesus or not. probably did.

[phrasemuffin.livejournal.com]

"anglo-saxonistic" made me think "saddistic"
... just thought I'd share :P