Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Monologic masculinity: the chanson de geste
- 2 The knight meets his match: romance
- 3 Troubadours, ladies and language: the canso
- 4 Saints, sex and community: hagiography
- 5 Genitals, gender and mobility: the fabliaux
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN FRENCH
Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 August 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Monologic masculinity: the chanson de geste
- 2 The knight meets his match: romance
- 3 Troubadours, ladies and language: the canso
- 4 Saints, sex and community: hagiography
- 5 Genitals, gender and mobility: the fabliaux
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN FRENCH
Summary
GENDER [OFr. gendre … see GENUS] † 1. Kind, sort
(SOED, 1, 840)GENRE [Fr., = KIND; SEE GENDER] 1. Kind; sort; style
(SOED, 1, 842)GENUS [L. genus birth, race, stock] 1. A class of things
(SOED, 1, 844)My working hypothesis in this book is that in medieval French and Occitan literature gender and genre are inextricably linked. My intention in seeking to combine the study of gender and genre is not simply to map a trendy critical term onto one with a more venerable pedigree. I shall argue that genres in medieval French and Occitan literature inscribe competing ideologies, that the construction of gender is a crucial element in any ideology, and that the distinct ideologies of medieval genres are predicated in part at least upon distinct constructions of gender. This hypothesis regarding gender and genre is based upon two premises: firstly, that every genre is an ideological formation; secondly, that a crucial component of every ideology is its engagement with the sex/gender system of the society in which it is produced. By ideology I mean a discourse which is used (not necessarily consciously) by a society, culture or section of a society or culture to naturalize or undermine, for itself and/or others, power structures and inequalities within it; by sex/gender system I mean the way in which power and authority are distributed according to ‘genderic’ criteria in any given historical context.
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- Gender and Genre in Medieval French Literature , pp. 1 - 21Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1995