Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- PART I Founding Myths: Nature, Culture, and the Production of a British Kingdom
- PART II Heteronormative Sexuality and the Mission Civilisatrice
- 4 Compulsory Love
- 5 Marriage and the Management of Difference: Between Incest and Miscegenation
- 6 Sexual Violence, Imperial Conquest and the Bonds between Men
- PART III Greeks, Trojans, and the Construction of British History
- Conclusion
- Glossary of Proper Names in Perceforest
- Bibliography
- Index
6 - Sexual Violence, Imperial Conquest and the Bonds between Men
from PART II - Heteronormative Sexuality and the Mission Civilisatrice
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- PART I Founding Myths: Nature, Culture, and the Production of a British Kingdom
- PART II Heteronormative Sexuality and the Mission Civilisatrice
- 4 Compulsory Love
- 5 Marriage and the Management of Difference: Between Incest and Miscegenation
- 6 Sexual Violence, Imperial Conquest and the Bonds between Men
- PART III Greeks, Trojans, and the Construction of British History
- Conclusion
- Glossary of Proper Names in Perceforest
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The Trojan identity of the wicked lignaige Darnant is explicit and formative. Of the evil customs that characterise the clan, sorcery is most directly linked to the Trojan heritage: Dardanon explains to Perceforest that ‘tous les enchantemens de cest pays’ [all the enchantments of this land] were brought there by Cassandra, who in turn imparted her knowledge to ‘ceulx qui puis en ont usé mauvaisement’ [people who subsequently put them to ill use] (I.i, pp. 424–5). The treacherous and anarchic proclivities of clan members also correspond to the Trojan reputation, well developed in medieval tradition, as traitors and murderers. Yet the Perceforest is silent on another vice sometimes attributed to Trojans in classical and medieval texts, their supposed homoerotic tendencies. The deviant Trojan sexuality, famously enunciated by Lavine's mother in the twelfth-century Roman d'Eneas, is also cited by Latin authors whose works were important sources for Perceforest, both with regard to Troy itself and with regard to the ethnically Trojan Britons. In his commentary on Virgil, Servius credits Trojans with the invention of pederasty, while references to Ganymede as Jove's lover often stress his Trojan origins. Geoffrey of Monmouth mentions two ‘sodomite’ British kings, Mempricius (II.vi) and Malgo (XI.vii), and notes further that the Britons were guilty of unspecified and apparently unspeakable sexual crimes: ‘ceperunt tali & tanti fornicationi indulgere. Qualis nec inter gentes audita est’ (XII.vi) [They began to indulge in sexual excesses such as had never been heard of among other peoples].
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- Postcolonial Fictions in the 'Roman de Perceforest'Cultural Identities and Hybridities, pp. 140 - 158Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2007