Que vilains nel porroit savoir: Gender and narrative authority in Old French romance.

Constructions of gender and sexuality inform and structure inscriptions of narrative authority in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Old French romances. Following Joan Scott, I define gender as an analytical tool for historical inquiry which is instrumental to the analysis of the elaboration of power in historically remote societies. Before gender can be analyzed as a lived experience, it must be examined as a discourse of difference that structures experience itself. My thesis is that representations of gender function as the basis for representations of narrative authority in a number of Old French romances. Representations of gender in Old French romances are influenced by contemporary discussions of gender in theology and medicine, including the works of Hugh of Saint Victor and Pseudo-Albertus Magnus. At the same time, ideologies of gender are at the core of the construction of secular and religious power during this period. Partonopeus de Blois and Le Bel Inconnu feature a fusion of narrative authority and gender constructions through the identification of the narrator as a lover. In the latter, reader and beloved are also fused in a complex play of desire among the narrator, lady, and the reader. In Le Roman de Silence, it is the heroine's and, ultimately, the narrator's, ability to manipulate gender categories that grants access to speech. Finally, in Guillaume de Lorris' Roman de la Rose, the play on gender categories extends to the representation of the beloved, who becomes both masculine and feminine through the figure of Bel Acueil. In each case, erotic desire serves as the authorizing force behind the narrative act. Representations of gender, then, function as an important foundation for the inscription of narrative authority in these Old French romances.Ph.D.Language, Literature and LinguisticsMedieval literatureRomance literatureUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/130153/2/9712115.pd