BitchBuzz: Women's Dangerous Desires

Just a tad bit too late to make it into the column, two news stories today: HarperCollins has a new erotica imprint, Mischief, and the Wall Street Journal has another gasping-for-the-shock-of-it story about what women read on their Kindles (oooh, scandal!). All this frothing shows the ultimate futility of the attempts to stuff women back into the genie-bottle of the past. Annoying that these old geezers keep trying, but we will triumph in the end. After all, women have more endurance. And multi-tasking!

Women's Dangerous Desires

By K.A. Laity

We may have accustomed ourselves to the bizarre hysterics of the Republican war on women in the States, but there's a more subtle campaign against women's desire. I guess it's a way of getting to the root of the problem. Apparently snapping some kind of chastity belt on the vagina just isn't enough. These busybodies would love to shackle women's minds as well.

It can be very subtle and often masquerades as "positive" coverage. The Independent Magazine had a story this past Sunday on a number of erotic romance writers, women of various ages and backgrounds. The male author approaches the writers as if they were some kind of lost species. The idea that he must ask, "Do women write porn?" flabbergasts. The shock angle is they are "shy introverted woman [sic] with a love of reading and writing." Like most writers of every genre, I suppose.

The editorial side plays up the sensationalism: "Kinky Books" the interior title screams. The first pull quote, "I write in secret, using words I would never, ever say," makes Kay Jaybee sound very different than her other words like, "Sadly, many people can't separate the art from the subject matter," rightly noting that people seldom assume crime writers to be murderers. Predictably perhaps, although the authors write mostly erotic romance, the cover blurb has it, "WOMEN WHO WRITE PORN." Porn triggers a more sensational reaction, of course...

Read the rest at BBHQ.

Mary of Nijmeghen

Mary -- or Mariken van Nieumeghen as it is in the original -- is a play that shows up in the early sixteenth century. My students read it this week and (among other things) we talked about how one might adapt it to a modern movie and came up with a really good plan. They're convinced I just use the class to brainstorm writing projects.

Who? Me?!

But they did enjoy learning a lot of new curses (eg. "profligate strumpet"). It's a Faustian tale -- although it predates the "original" Faust -- in which a young woman sells her soul to the devil in a moment of weakness and confusion. He doesn't tempt her with life everlasting, love or riches, but with learning.

The Devil: If you would give your love to me, I would teach you the arts as no one else could: the seven liberal arts, rhetoric, music, logic, grammar, geometry, arithmetic and alchemy [<--substitutes a false one here, it should be astronomy], all of which are most important arts. There is no woman upon earth so proficient in them as I shall make you.

The seven disciplines were the backbone of the original university as founded in the Middle Ages. I like to remind my female students that they would not have been welcome there. Fascinating that this is the temptation for her, though wealth and riches come eventually. She finally repents when she sees a play (how po-mo) but it's a delight to see the joy and frustration of the writer (believed to be Anna Bijns) come through in the scene in which drunken revelers demand a demonstration of Mary's rhetorical skill:

O rhetoric, o true and lovely art, I who have always esteemed thee above all, I lament with grief that there are those who hate you and despise you. This is a grief to those who love you. Fie upon those who count you merely folly. Fie upon them who do so, for I wholly despise them. But for those who support you, life is full of hurt and sorrow. Ignorant men are the destruction of art.

They say in the proverb that through art grows the heart, but I say that it is a lying fable, for should some great artist appear, those who are unskilled and know not the first thing about art will make their opinion prevail everywhere, and artists will be reduced to beggary. Always it is the flatterer who is preferred, and always artists suffer such harm, and ignorant men are the destruction of art.

Fie upon all crude, coarse common minds, trying to measure art by your standards: everyone should pay honour to pure art, art which is the ruler of many a pleasant land. Honour be to all who are the promoters of art, fie upon the ignorant who reject art, for this is why I proclaim the rule that ignorant men are the destruction of art.

Prince, I will devote myself to art, and do everything in my power to acquire it. But it is to all lovers of art a sorrow that ignorant men pay so little honour to art.

Clearly it will always be so, but it's comforting to know that despite the efforts of ignorant men, art continues to thrive even in the midst of our suffering. Translation by Eric Colledge in this excellent collection.

Chanctonbury Ring at Midsummer

Liz and I sallied up the rather muddy and slippery slope to Chanctonbury Ring today, which was a bit more daunting than we assumed. In part that was due to the lack of signage. In fact we initially drove past the parking area because there was no warning for the picnic area, just a small sign tucked away next to a cattlefield. Not exactly an optimum picnic spot, but it is really pretty countryside. But where to go from there. We followed a woman who seemed to know where she was going with her black Lab, but she turned back when she saw how muddy it was. We pressed on, being determined to make this walk. Of course it was a lot steeper than we thought it would be, slippery through the woody paths. Recent rain had brought down a lot of detritus and mud which made the trail challenging, but the forest was beautiful and quiet but  for bird songs.

We were congratulating ourselves on at last reaching the top, but when we walked out into the meadow at the top, there was no sure indication of which way the ring lay. Ah, we thought, noticing an intrepid pair of obviously seasoned walkers, we'll ask them. Well, they had no idea; they had much more detailed maps of the area and yet were uncertain exactly where we or the ring fort were. But we all agreed on the most likely direction and struck off again (they quickly pulled ahead of us). We admired the sheep and were cheered to see the growth of trees in the distance that seemed to look like the ring and admired the view around us -- well, as long as it lasted because the clouds closed in and the rain began and the wind whipped up to show us who was boss.

However, we were determined now and nothing would stop us from making the last bit of the journey and sure enough we could see the earthen wall and walked up into it to find a guy with his bike (I'm guessing he did not come up the same path) gathering mushrooms. We had quite a feeling of accomplishment as the wind whipped around us and decided to  celebrate by heading back down. It's quite an amazing journey. Legend says that you can conjure the devil by running around the ring counter-clockwise seven times. He will offer you soup for your soul.

Liz made soup for lunch; I ate it anyway. It was very good.

Review: Vision: From the Life of Hildegard of Bingen

See all of Tuesday's Overlooked Films (and other media) over at Todd Mason's blog.

There's a short BBC film on the life of Hildegard von Bingen that I show to my classes starring the fantastic Patricia Routledge as the visionary healer. Despite its creaky low-budget ambience I prefer it to this one despite its beauties. But I'm all for more films (and plays and books) about one of the many influential women of the Middle Ages. Despite what my students have sometimes told me, there are not only women in medieval times (yes, I have had students say that "there were no women in Anglo-Saxon England" which makes one wonder how there were any men...) but a surprising number were well known at the time not just in retrospect.

Hildegard is one and this film conveys some of the reasons why. Her visions hold center stage here, which is a shame because her music should share that stage. The music is there, but it's as if filmmaker Margarethe von Trotta assumes you already know about the music from the start. Eventually -- and rather gloriously -- the music gets it moment, embodied in a very pagan-looking production of the Ordo Virtutum which releases the nuns from their habits and wimples to look absolutely golden with grace.

But a lot of the film seems unable to see Hildegard's piety except from an anachronistic modernity. There's the gruesome revelation of her spiritual mother's cilice upon her death, where the metal prongs have to be peeled away from her rotting flesh. Hildegard's combativeness against the masculine discipline seems to be the simple misogyny of individuals rather than the more complicated hierarchical world that evolves from a patriarchal structure; after all, Hildegard proves able to negotiate that imposing edifice with skill and insight, circumventing control with targeted appeals to the right ears. The importance of an authoritative endorsement of her work at the Synod of Trier and her correspondence with popes and leaders demonstrates the significant power this "humble vessel" attained.

Of course modern filmmakers can only see the relationships between the women, especially Hildegard's connection to her acolyte Richardis, as a barely concealed sexual attraction, which trivialises the depth and complexity of the lives of women in cloistered world. Hildegard's faith gave her authority and power; it infused her life and her outlook. The visions -- which von Trotta's film suggests are as often put on for show as for genuine insight -- were amazingly complex works that crystalised complex notions into a single multifaceted image. She turned a medical condition that plagued her into a gift that allowed her to interpret and explain in an unprecedented way: true genius.

Nonetheless, there is much to enjoy in the film. Barbara Sukowa makes an arresting Hildegard and the film provides a gorgeous view of medieval life that isn't all leeches and mud. The gardens in particular are lovely: Hildegard as a healer (and the author of Physica and Causae et Curae) also gets short shrift in the film, though we do see her teaching the novices herbs. The film has a leisurely pace, so don't go expecting action/adventure. A good introduction for folks who know nothing about this remarkable woman: with luck, it will inspire you to look further.

Bella Roma: the video!