Grammatical Gender and Human Differences in Literature: France and England, 1100-1300

This thesis argues that the modern concept of ‘gender’ as a fact of social organisation and an aspect of individual identity is the metaphorisation of a grammatical concept, and that this metaphor has a history. A major inflection point in this history is the period between 1100 and 1300, when the serviceability of gender as a concept became the object of lively intellectual debates which played out in the arena of literature. The thesis traces these debates by focusing on a particular strand of argument, which contests gender’s ability to refer to bodies and social roles in a consistent and orderly manner. I call this pessimistic view of gender ‘transgender grammar.’ A range of authors writing in Latin and French explore the relationship between grammatical gender, anatomy, and society in ways that suggest an awareness of this relationship’s provisional nature. The thesis analyses the development of this discussion as the simultaneous unfolding of two entangled discourses: gender discourse and transgender grammar. The first Chapter charts the rise of gender in the long twelfth century, describing that rise as the surge in popularity of grammatical gender’s metaphorical identification with sex difference and social roles, which can be observed in a diverse corpus of Latin lyrics from the period. The second Chapter offers a detailed account of transgender grammar through a reading of Alan of Lille’s *De planctu Naturae* which situates it in the context of the metaphorisation of gender as described by the first Chapter. *De planctu* should principally be read, not as the condemnation of same-sex copulation identified by previous scholarship, but rather as a critique of gender as the condition of possibility for sexual regulation. The remaining chapters chart the reception of *De planctu*’s transgender grammar across vernacular texts of the following two centuries, focusing on the *Roman de Silence* and the *Roman de la Rose*.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Cambridge

Year dc:date.issued

2023

Author dc:creator

• Charmaille, François E

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Knox, Philip

• medieval culture
• trans studies

Licence

• https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/b078703b-d76c-4955-93ad-0efd09c34b27/download
• https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/

Language dc:language

eng

DOI dc:identifier.doi

https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.111889

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/373503