"Lybeaus Desconus and the Squire of Low Degree"deki Sheela Na Gig Modeli

Year 2014, Volume: 54 Issue: 2, 73 - 86, 01.01.2014

Hülya Taflı Düzgün

Abstract

Sheela Na Gig ortaçağda kutsal mimari yapılarının üzerine kabartmalı olarak resmi yapılan çıplak kadın figürüdür ve resminin yapımının nedeni kutsal sayıldığındandır. Bu makalenin amacı anonim ortaçağ İngiliz romansları olan ve 15. yüzyılda yazılı kültüre aktarılan Lybeaus Desconus ve The Squire of Low Degree’deki tasvir edilen çıplak kadın modelinin sheela na gig modelindeki gibi karmaşık anlamlar içerdiğini göstermektir. Bu makale, özellikle Havva’nın cennetten kovulmasına bağlı olarak Ortaçağda kadın düşmanlığı ile ilgili yazılan metinlere rağmen, aynı dönemde yazılan ve bu makalede başlık olarak kullanılan romansların bu duruma nasıl ters düştüğünü irdelemektedir.

Keywords

Ortaçağ, Romans, Lybeaus Desconus, The Squire of Low Degree, Kadın İmajı

A Model of Sheela Na Gig in Lybeaus Desconus and the Squire of Low Degree?

Abstract

A Sheela Na Gig is a carving of a woman with exposed and/or exaggerated genitalia, usually found on religious buildings in the Middle Ages and considered to be sacred. This article seeks to examine the complexity of the naked female body in the Middle ages embodying a sheela na gig model. The naked female body is usually regarded as a sinful object as most of the medieval clerical antifeministic writings deal with in relation to the Fall of Eve. However, some anonymous Middle English romances – particularly the fifteenth century Lybeaus Desconus and The Squire of Low Degree seem to resist the medieval representations of the naked female body as sinful. This article argues about naked female body which does not seem to be a subject matter of evil in the Middle English Lybeaus Desconus and The Squire of Low Degree.

Keywords

Medieval Woman, Middle English Romance, Lybeaus Desconus, The Squire of Low Degree, Female Nudity and Romance

References

• Augustine. De bono coniugali and De sancta virginitate. in Sancti Aureli Augustini. J. Zycha (ed.). CSEL 41, Vienna: G. Gerotd, 1900), pp. 186-23.
• Beattie, Cordelia. Meanings of Singleness: the Single Woman in Late Medieval England, Unpublished DPhil Dissertation, University of York, 2001.
• Caviness, Madeline Harrison. Visualizing Women in the Middle Ages: Sight, Spectacle and Scopic Economy. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001.
• Chaucer, Geoffrey. ‘The Man of Law’s Tale’, in The Riverside Chaucer (3rd edition), Benson Larry D., (ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.
• _________. ‘ Parson’s Tale, in The Riverside Chaucer (3rd edition), Benson Larry D., (ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.
• Fellows, Jennifer. “Mothers in Middle English Romance”, in Women and Literature in Britain, 1150-1500, (ed.) Carol M. Meale, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature 17, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1993.
• Fewster, Carol Fewster. Traditionality and Genre in Medieval Romance. Cambridge: D.S.Brewer, 1987.
• Flores, Nona C. “Effigies Amicitiae…Veritas Inimicitiae: Antifeminism in the Iconography of the Woman-Headed Serpent in Medieval and Renaissance Art and Literature”. Animals in the Middle Ages. Ed. Nona C. Flores. London: Routledge, 2000. 167-95.
• Frye, Northrop. The Secular Scripture: A Study of the Structure of Romance. London: Harvard University Press, 1976.
• Gibbs, Henry (ed.). Chevalere Assigne. Early English Text Society. Extra Series 6, 1898.
• Herzman Ronald, Graham Drake and Eve Salisbury. Four Romances of England: King Horn, Havelok the Dane, Bevis of Hampton, Altheston. Kalamazoo: Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1997.
• Hopkins, Amanda. “Wordy vnthur Wede: Clothing, Nakedness and the Erotic in Some Romances of Medieval Britain”. The Erotic in the Literature of Medieval Britain. Ed. Amanda Hopkins and Cory James Rushton. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2007. 53-70.
• Horner, Shari. “The Violence of Exegesis: Reading the Bodies of Aelfric’s Female Saints”. Violence Against Women in Medieval Texts. Ed. Anna Roberts. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1998. 22-43.
• Kooper, Erik, ed. “The Squire of Low Degree (Undo Youre Dore)”. Sentimental and Humorous Romances. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2006.
• ______. “Sir Degrevant”. Sentimental and Humorous Romances. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2006.
• Laskaya, Anne and Eve Salisbury, eds. “The Earl of Tolous”. The Middle English Breton Lays. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1995. 319-59.
• Micha, Alexandre, ed. Les Romans de Chrétien de Troyes, Cligés. Paris: Champion, 1970.
• Miles, Margaret R. Carnal Knowing: Female Nakedness and Religious Meaning in the Christian West. Boston: Beacon Press, 1980.
• Mills, Maldwyn, ed. Lybeaus Desconus. London: EETS, Oxford University Press, 1969.
• Schaus, Margaret C., ed. Women and Gender in Medieval Europe: An Encyclopedia. Oxon: Routledge, 2006: 247.
• Stevens, John. Medieval Romance: Themes and Approache. London: Hutchinson, 1973.
• Tertullian, De Cultu Feminarum Libri Duo: Liber I in De Habito Muliebri, Marie Turcan (ed.), 1971.
• Wallensköld, Florence de Rome: Chanson D’Aventure du Premier Quart du XIIIE Siécle. Paris, 1909.
• Weingartner, Russell, ed. and trans. “The Lay of Guingamor” Graelent and Guingamor:
• Two Breton Lays. London: Garland Publishing, 1985.
• Weldon, James. “Naked as She was Bore: Naked Disenchantment in Lybeaus Desconus”, Parergon 24:1 (2007): 67-99.