Annotated Bibliography: Sex And Gender In The Renaissance
Nikki Serrani (998042871)
VIC343Y: Sex and Gender in the Renaissance
Professor Konrad Eisenbichler
March 19th, 2015
“For if the imagination does have any power in such matters, in girls it dwells so constantly and so forcefully on sex that it can […] more easily make that male organ into a part of their bodies.” (Michel de Montaigne)
Word Count: 1471
Michel de Montaigne is one of the most important philosophers of the Renaissance era. Montaigne was born on February 28th, 1533 in Guyenne, France, and died at the age of fifty-nine on September 13th, 1592 in the city of his birthplace, Guyenne. Throughout his career working as a philosopher, Montaigne’s writing developed into something more personal. …show more content…
His works began to examine the world through his own perspective, particularly, in his three books, the Essais, written between the periods of 1570- 1592. The word, ‘essai’ in French means “trial” or “attempt.” Thus, Montaigne’s writing “attempted” to explore his personal thoughts in order to explain the nature of the human mind and body. It is through his intellectual thought process of looking within the self that he is considered the father of Modern Skepticism. In Book 1, Chapter 21 of his Essais, Montaigne recalls the tale of Marie/Germain, a female who grew a penis. The story of Marie/Germain challenges the readers mind in identifying the absolute division between what categorizes someone as male and female. The Oxford English Dictionary defines sex as different to gender. In the sense, sex “tends to refer to biological differences, while… gender refers to cultural and socially constructed roles, behaviors and activities”.1 However, Montaigne challenges societies presupposed definitions between sex and gender. In the case of Marie/ Germain, Montaigne defines hermaphrodism by suggesting that the imagination results in the transformation into the opposite gender. In other words, a woman can become a man by fixating on forms of masculinity. Therefore to Montaigne, sex and gender is generated through the mind; the power of imagination and desire affirms how gender was understood as a state of mind throughout the Renaissance.
In the Essais Montaigne recalls the story of Marie/Germain while traveling through Vitry-le-Francois, France. He explains,
I was able to see a man to whom the Bishop of Soissons had given the name of Germain at his confirmation: until the age of twenty-two he had been known by sight to all the townsfolk as a girl named Marie. He was then an old man with a full beard; he remained unmarried. He said that he had been straining to jump when his male organs appeared. It is not surprising tat this sort of occurrence happens frequently. For if the imagination does have any power in such matters, in so girls it dwells so constantly and so forcefully on sex that it can… more easily make that male organ a part of their bodies. 2
The story of Marie/Germain describes a girl who had reached puberty, and while jumping over a ditch she suddenly found that she had possessed a penis.3 When Marie told her mother what had happened to her they consult surgeons and doctors to analyze her transformation.4 The doctors and surgeons agreed that Marie had become a boy. So, she was brought to the town’s local bishop where she was given a new male name, Germain. Galen’s work, On the Usefulness of the Parts of the Body, reflects the transformation of Marie/Germain from a girl to a boy. The physician single sex theory explains that women have as much hidden inside the body as men have exposed on the outside of their bodies.5 For this reason, Galen’s theory further suggests that due to the lack of bodily heat, the female is less perfect than the male. Moreover, he explains that the animal (male) that contains more bodily heat more active and as a result more perfect.6 Therefore, the reason why the female retains an inverted version of the male organs inside her body is because she is colder. However, due to the physical movement of Marie jumping across the ditch, the jumping produced excesses heat resulting in the transformation from girl to boy. Richard L. Regosin explains that the same sex theory is based on a physiological difference of sex determined through the location of the genitals.7 However, Galen’s single sex theory is also culturally motivated; the conception of the location of genitals on the body reflects a hierarchy of gender differences between sexes.8 Ambroise Paré explains this hierarchy by suggesting that sex-change “is possible for a woman to become a man, it was not possible for a man to be a woman. Nature always tends towards that which was most perfect, and it is male that is most perfect.”9 It is for this reason that men are more perfect than female’s. Furthermore, Paré insists that women should be excused for trying to be men because they are just aspiring to reach absolute perfection, which is to become male. In Montaigne’s account of Marie/Germain gender is a state of mind; a state of mind that through imagination a sex change can occur. So, when Marie acted like a boy by jumping across the ditch her body punished her through the growth of the male organ. In this way, sex change is a consequence of thinking differently by imagining yourself as the opposite sex. Therefore, Montaigne’s idea of hermaphrodism and sex change is dependent upon the ways in which society codes gender roles.10 Thus, Marie/ Germain functions as an example of how sex is an agent to societal and cultural ideals.
Montaigne’s story of Marie/Germain links imagination to gender. Specifically, imagination ‘is a bridge between the mind and the body;’ it gives the mind awareness of the physical world, generating a perspective.11 Therefore, gender is performative, especially in the case of Marie/Germain, because in order to become a male Marie had to act like a boy. Judith Butler explores the subject of gender as performative in her article, Bodily Inscriptions, Performative Subversions. Specifically, Butler challenges the progress of gender performance as an affect of gender identity. She believes that sex is a social construct, and gender is determined through the perception of the body.12 Therefore, the idea of performance in gender is based on actions. Actions construct gender for the reason that gender is something that does not come naturally; rather, it is culturally imposed. Accordingly, Marie/Germain’s knowledge of what it meant to be male is what affects her transformation into a man. It is through the force of her manly imagination that Marie/Germain suffers the repercussions of growing a penis. Therefore, sexual transformation is linked to the mind; it is the performance of acting in a way that applies to a specific gender that links the mind to the body, creating actions and behaviors that suit cultural norms. This is why Marie/Germain’s imagination resulted in a consequential bodily change.
Anatomical changes cannot only occur in acting like a boy but also in the mind through a state of desire. In the case of Marie/Germain, Montaigne suggests that the tale is essentially a male trapped in a female’s body. He proposes that the only way to control the ‘other’ within the body is to give, in this case a woman, a penis as a way to regulate their desire and thereby obliterate discrepancy between gender and sex.13 Therefore, desire in this case, is a force to imagination. For without the feeling of desire we cannot imagine. In Paré’s version of Marie/Germain, he suggests that the female’s imagination is generated through the desires to produce “monstrous” offspring’s. However, this draws away from the idea of imagination entirely. On the other hand, Montaigne’s case of the hermaphrodite is strictly concerned with the tension between the physical reality of the female body and her desire to be a man. Thus, women are moved by the their desires. It was Marie/Germain’s desire to become a male that resulted in her vigorous jump over the ditch and her transformation into a male.
Michel de Montaigne’s story of Marie/ Germain explains that acting like a boy could produce anatomical changes throughout the Renaissance. It is through desire, imagination and ultimately performance that forces anatomical changes to the body. For Marie to think and act like a boy at such a young age, she transformed her body and grew a penis. Marie/Germain’s case is an example of how hermaphrodism is still considered an ambiguous gender. This ambiguity is problematic because it is society that needs people to be gendered. Therefore, gender is an identity that is constructed in time. If the imaginative mind fixates on being the opposite gender, then the body will eventually transform into that sex. Therefore, Montaigne’s theory of sex change produced through the imagination suggests that sex and gender is generated through the mind, that later affects the state of the body.
Bibliography
Ambroise Pare. On Monsters and Marvels. Tran. Janis L. Pallister Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1982, 26-33
Benkov, Edith J. “Rereading Montaigne’s Memorable Stories. Sexuality and Gender in Vitry- le Francois.” In Montaigne After Theory, Theory After Montaigne, ed. Zahi Anbra Zalloua. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2009, 202- 217
Bullough, Vern L., and Bonnie Bullough. Cross Dressing, Sex, and Gender. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania, 1993. 89-100. Print.
Butler, Judith.
"Bodily Inscriptions, Performative Subversions." Feminist Theory and The Body. Edinburgh University Press, 1999. 416-23. Print.
Galenus, and Margaret Tallmadge. May. On the Usefulness of the Parts of the Body 6-7 ed. Vol. 14. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1968.
Kritsman, Lawrence D. The Fabulous Imagination: On Montaigne’s Essays. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009, 40 - 43.
Lyons, John D. Introduction. Before Imagination: Embodied Thought from Montaigne to Rousseau. California: Stanford UP, 2005. 1-48. Print.
Michel de Montaigne, The Essays of Michel de Montaigne. Trans. M.A. Screech. New York: The Penguin Press, 1991,111.
Outram, Dorina. “Gender.” In The Cambridge History of Science. Vol. 3, Early Modern Science. Eds. Katharine Park and Lorraine Daston. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006, 804-806
Parker, Patricia. “Gender Ideology, Gender Change: The Case of Marie Germain.” Critical Inquiry 19.2 (1993): 337- 364
Regosin, Richard L. Montaigne’s Unrule Brood: Textual Engendering and the Challenge to Paternal Authority. Berkley: Univerity of California Press, 1996, 186-190.
Soanes, Catherine, and Angus Stevenson. Concise Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009,
592
VIC343Y: Sex and Gender in the Renaissance
Professor Konrad Eisenbichler
March 19th, 2015
“For if the imagination does have any power in such matters, in girls it dwells so constantly and so forcefully on sex that it can […] more easily make that male organ into a part of their bodies.” (Michel de Montaigne)
Word Count: 1471
Michel de Montaigne is one of the most important philosophers of the Renaissance era. Montaigne was born on February 28th, 1533 in Guyenne, France, and died at the age of fifty-nine on September 13th, 1592 in the city of his birthplace, Guyenne. Throughout his career working as a philosopher, Montaigne’s writing developed into something more personal. …show more content…
His works began to examine the world through his own perspective, particularly, in his three books, the Essais, written between the periods of 1570- 1592. The word, ‘essai’ in French means “trial” or “attempt.” Thus, Montaigne’s writing “attempted” to explore his personal thoughts in order to explain the nature of the human mind and body. It is through his intellectual thought process of looking within the self that he is considered the father of Modern Skepticism. In Book 1, Chapter 21 of his Essais, Montaigne recalls the tale of Marie/Germain, a female who grew a penis. The story of Marie/Germain challenges the readers mind in identifying the absolute division between what categorizes someone as male and female. The Oxford English Dictionary defines sex as different to gender. In the sense, sex “tends to refer to biological differences, while… gender refers to cultural and socially constructed roles, behaviors and activities”.1 However, Montaigne challenges societies presupposed definitions between sex and gender. In the case of Marie/ Germain, Montaigne defines hermaphrodism by suggesting that the imagination results in the transformation into the opposite gender. In other words, a woman can become a man by fixating on forms of masculinity. Therefore to Montaigne, sex and gender is generated through the mind; the power of imagination and desire affirms how gender was understood as a state of mind throughout the Renaissance.
In the Essais Montaigne recalls the story of Marie/Germain while traveling through Vitry-le-Francois, France. He explains,
I was able to see a man to whom the Bishop of Soissons had given the name of Germain at his confirmation: until the age of twenty-two he had been known by sight to all the townsfolk as a girl named Marie. He was then an old man with a full beard; he remained unmarried. He said that he had been straining to jump when his male organs appeared. It is not surprising tat this sort of occurrence happens frequently. For if the imagination does have any power in such matters, in so girls it dwells so constantly and so forcefully on sex that it can… more easily make that male organ a part of their bodies. 2
The story of Marie/Germain describes a girl who had reached puberty, and while jumping over a ditch she suddenly found that she had possessed a penis.3 When Marie told her mother what had happened to her they consult surgeons and doctors to analyze her transformation.4 The doctors and surgeons agreed that Marie had become a boy. So, she was brought to the town’s local bishop where she was given a new male name, Germain. Galen’s work, On the Usefulness of the Parts of the Body, reflects the transformation of Marie/Germain from a girl to a boy. The physician single sex theory explains that women have as much hidden inside the body as men have exposed on the outside of their bodies.5 For this reason, Galen’s theory further suggests that due to the lack of bodily heat, the female is less perfect than the male. Moreover, he explains that the animal (male) that contains more bodily heat more active and as a result more perfect.6 Therefore, the reason why the female retains an inverted version of the male organs inside her body is because she is colder. However, due to the physical movement of Marie jumping across the ditch, the jumping produced excesses heat resulting in the transformation from girl to boy. Richard L. Regosin explains that the same sex theory is based on a physiological difference of sex determined through the location of the genitals.7 However, Galen’s single sex theory is also culturally motivated; the conception of the location of genitals on the body reflects a hierarchy of gender differences between sexes.8 Ambroise Paré explains this hierarchy by suggesting that sex-change “is possible for a woman to become a man, it was not possible for a man to be a woman. Nature always tends towards that which was most perfect, and it is male that is most perfect.”9 It is for this reason that men are more perfect than female’s. Furthermore, Paré insists that women should be excused for trying to be men because they are just aspiring to reach absolute perfection, which is to become male. In Montaigne’s account of Marie/Germain gender is a state of mind; a state of mind that through imagination a sex change can occur. So, when Marie acted like a boy by jumping across the ditch her body punished her through the growth of the male organ. In this way, sex change is a consequence of thinking differently by imagining yourself as the opposite sex. Therefore, Montaigne’s idea of hermaphrodism and sex change is dependent upon the ways in which society codes gender roles.10 Thus, Marie/ Germain functions as an example of how sex is an agent to societal and cultural ideals.
Montaigne’s story of Marie/Germain links imagination to gender. Specifically, imagination ‘is a bridge between the mind and the body;’ it gives the mind awareness of the physical world, generating a perspective.11 Therefore, gender is performative, especially in the case of Marie/Germain, because in order to become a male Marie had to act like a boy. Judith Butler explores the subject of gender as performative in her article, Bodily Inscriptions, Performative Subversions. Specifically, Butler challenges the progress of gender performance as an affect of gender identity. She believes that sex is a social construct, and gender is determined through the perception of the body.12 Therefore, the idea of performance in gender is based on actions. Actions construct gender for the reason that gender is something that does not come naturally; rather, it is culturally imposed. Accordingly, Marie/Germain’s knowledge of what it meant to be male is what affects her transformation into a man. It is through the force of her manly imagination that Marie/Germain suffers the repercussions of growing a penis. Therefore, sexual transformation is linked to the mind; it is the performance of acting in a way that applies to a specific gender that links the mind to the body, creating actions and behaviors that suit cultural norms. This is why Marie/Germain’s imagination resulted in a consequential bodily change.
Anatomical changes cannot only occur in acting like a boy but also in the mind through a state of desire. In the case of Marie/Germain, Montaigne suggests that the tale is essentially a male trapped in a female’s body. He proposes that the only way to control the ‘other’ within the body is to give, in this case a woman, a penis as a way to regulate their desire and thereby obliterate discrepancy between gender and sex.13 Therefore, desire in this case, is a force to imagination. For without the feeling of desire we cannot imagine. In Paré’s version of Marie/Germain, he suggests that the female’s imagination is generated through the desires to produce “monstrous” offspring’s. However, this draws away from the idea of imagination entirely. On the other hand, Montaigne’s case of the hermaphrodite is strictly concerned with the tension between the physical reality of the female body and her desire to be a man. Thus, women are moved by the their desires. It was Marie/Germain’s desire to become a male that resulted in her vigorous jump over the ditch and her transformation into a male.
Michel de Montaigne’s story of Marie/ Germain explains that acting like a boy could produce anatomical changes throughout the Renaissance. It is through desire, imagination and ultimately performance that forces anatomical changes to the body. For Marie to think and act like a boy at such a young age, she transformed her body and grew a penis. Marie/Germain’s case is an example of how hermaphrodism is still considered an ambiguous gender. This ambiguity is problematic because it is society that needs people to be gendered. Therefore, gender is an identity that is constructed in time. If the imaginative mind fixates on being the opposite gender, then the body will eventually transform into that sex. Therefore, Montaigne’s theory of sex change produced through the imagination suggests that sex and gender is generated through the mind, that later affects the state of the body.
Bibliography
Ambroise Pare. On Monsters and Marvels. Tran. Janis L. Pallister Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1982, 26-33
Benkov, Edith J. “Rereading Montaigne’s Memorable Stories. Sexuality and Gender in Vitry- le Francois.” In Montaigne After Theory, Theory After Montaigne, ed. Zahi Anbra Zalloua. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2009, 202- 217
Bullough, Vern L., and Bonnie Bullough. Cross Dressing, Sex, and Gender. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania, 1993. 89-100. Print.
Butler, Judith.
"Bodily Inscriptions, Performative Subversions." Feminist Theory and The Body. Edinburgh University Press, 1999. 416-23. Print.
Galenus, and Margaret Tallmadge. May. On the Usefulness of the Parts of the Body 6-7 ed. Vol. 14. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1968.
Kritsman, Lawrence D. The Fabulous Imagination: On Montaigne’s Essays. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009, 40 - 43.
Lyons, John D. Introduction. Before Imagination: Embodied Thought from Montaigne to Rousseau. California: Stanford UP, 2005. 1-48. Print.
Michel de Montaigne, The Essays of Michel de Montaigne. Trans. M.A. Screech. New York: The Penguin Press, 1991,111.
Outram, Dorina. “Gender.” In The Cambridge History of Science. Vol. 3, Early Modern Science. Eds. Katharine Park and Lorraine Daston. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006, 804-806
Parker, Patricia. “Gender Ideology, Gender Change: The Case of Marie Germain.” Critical Inquiry 19.2 (1993): 337- 364
Regosin, Richard L. Montaigne’s Unrule Brood: Textual Engendering and the Challenge to Paternal Authority. Berkley: Univerity of California Press, 1996, 186-190.
Soanes, Catherine, and Angus Stevenson. Concise Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009,
592