Sexual Language and Human Conflict in Old French Fabliaux

Bibliographic Data

ID2107232
AuthorsSarah Melhado White, Sarah J White (0000-0001-6946-9155, Franklin & Marshall College, corresponding author)
Year1982
Volume24
Issue2
Pages185-210
Publication date1982-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueComparative Studies in Society and History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0010-4175 • E-ISSN: 1475-2999
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0010417500009890
OpenAlexW2036226810
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited13

French literature has specialized, almost since its beginning, in accounts of eroticism and courtship. During the twelfth century, Northern romance and Southern lyric described an idealized heterosexuality and its role in honing the aristocratic individual. In the thirteenth century, a new genre appeared that dealt with sexual encounter in more materialistic terms. The new form, the fabliau, added to literary language a vocabulary of vulgarisms from the spoken vernacular. At the same time, it gave European literature a new theme: sexuality that betokens not personal fulfillment, but rivalrous interpersonal struggle

Art · BLISS · Courtship · Eroticism · Human sexuality · Literature · Materialism · Romance · Sociology · Theme (computing) · Vernacular · French Literature and Criticism · Gender Studies · History · Medieval European Literature and History · Philosophy · Renaissance Literature and Culture