written by Lexi MondotUpon the coming of age of Louis XIV, royal regulation of decorum took on a new face, as he “managed to revive cross-dressing as a ‘royal performance practice’”(Harris 58) French Theatre in the 17th century was ahead of its time in the way it represented gender. On the road towards constructing a unique male persona on stage, French drama challenged the ‘ideal’ European masculinity, and Renaissance ‘Man.’ The expected decorum of the male, the absolutist authority assumed by men, the roles given to men, and the words used to label men were well defined in Neoclassical Europe. These normalcies are challenged, both by what the playwrights and actors propose to their audience, and also by what the crown allows or encourages to be performed. The expected decorum of the male, was challenged in works such as L’ile de hermaphrodites, where expectations of station-specific attire are opposed. According to Harris, this sumptuary law dispute “accordingly expresses the court’s debauchery and corruption... in turn-of-the-century France,”(Harris 79). The transgressions of decorous apparel, and image, can illustrate the fluctuation of gender, considering artificial construction of class can be applied in the same way to gender. Other plays which provoke decorous gender, include La Fille Savante (1690) and Coquette (1691). In the former, the woman disrupts bodily expectations for her gender, and in the latter, women discuss their capacity to consume alcohol. Both of these examples “transgress the typical restrictions placed upon [gender]... by the demands of society,” (Harris 79). Although Cardinal Richelieu intended to uphold the rules of Neoclassicism, playwrights did revolt in small ways as cited above. Upon the coming of age of Louis XIV, royal regulation of decorum took on a new face, as he “managed to revive cross-dressing as a ‘royal performance practice’”(Harris 58). This was only a few years after multiple all-boy colleges had forbidden cross-dressing on stage for religious reasons. Louis’s encouragement of cross-gender representation lead to the the acceptance of effeminate traits among men. In 17th century france, men could wear curly wigs, perfume, high heels, blouses and frills. These are traits that today would be considered undoubtedly feminine. But views change overtime, and “traits that affirm one’s masculinity in one social context can undermine it in another” (Coltrane 7). These traits may be seen as effeminate to us, however the purchase and appropriation of fake long curly hair, was considered manly. To be able to purchase another person’s hair, was considered a representation of man’s ability to undermine God’s intention (Festa 60). This ‘man-made’ beauty is also seen in the gardens in Paris and Versailles. Jardin du Luxembourg, Jardin Tuileries, and the Jardin at Versailles are all representative of man’s control over nature. The use of male power to create beautiful things in spite of god, paradoxically allows men of this period to express feminine qualities. For example, Philippe d’Orleans, Louis XIV’s brother was permitted to dress women, and cross dress in private quarters when off the stage. Although Cardinal Mazarin did put forth an effort to make him more masculine, the court accepted his femininity, especially after his performance in the Ballet du Roi des Fetes de Bacchus (1651), (Harris 62). This goes to show that although there still exists resistance to effeminate masculinity, there was a larger awareness of the flexibility of gender identification among the French court and people than in English, Spanish or Italian courts of this time. The third aspect of decorum that is called into question, is the representation of male desire. Hearn argues that “no one is more arrogant toward women, more aggressive or scornful than the man who is anxious about his virility”(36). Thus the intense desire to express one’s own ‘machoness’ turns masculinity from a mere trait to a dangerous tool of jealousy, violence, and unruly competition. This is seen in Spanish characters such as Don Juan; Italian comedies, such as Mandragola; and English drama, such as the brothers in the Duchess of Malfi. The exaggeration and commonality of unruly male desire becomes limited to chauvinistic sexual desire, desire for power through oppressive means, and a macho desire to prove oneself as stronger than the other. If a man’s desires lie outside of these ‘manly’ expectations, it is ridiculed and considered weak. This forces men to personify a stock character in theatre, degrading their ability to have individualized desires, and to respect and love others on the same level as themselves. For example, Spanish sword-plays at this time, demonstrate a one sided perspective of male identity, where men “think with only their swords,” (Dr. Partin). This insulting representation of men, becomes abusive and inhumane, when in fact men should be held in higher regard, for everyone’s sake. In French theater, however, beginning with Henri III, his desires drew upon a balance of the virile and feminine, as “he is subjected not only to his own desires, but also through economic dependence, to the desires of others” (Harris 56). This shows his openness to be the object of desire and not just fight for his own desires as expected. Festa argues that in French theatre, men, such as the Sun King, allowed themselves to be beautiful spectacle not necessarily “spectacles of heroic and sympathetic imperial masculinity," (78). The laws of decorous men in 17th century France were often broken, (as cited above) through feminine expression, individualized desires and finally their openness to what it means to ‘act like a man.’ In French theatre, boys and men could be considered sexy, beautiful and gentle, which is not a neoclassical virile attitude. This can be seen in the 1658 performance of Atalia, when a cross-dressed boy actor from College Clermont’s was considered by critics as “‘si joli et si doux,’”(Harris 47). (meaning so pretty and so soft). Rejecting social stigma for men in this way, uplifts the man more than it equalizes the genders. Not forcedly targeted towards female advancement, these efforts widen accepted masculinity, which in turn improves the quality of life for both men and women. These men, however are able to benefit from all the pleasures of femininity, but “suffer from none of the debasement” (Harris 47). The second way in which 17th Century French Theatre challenged the masculine representation is in the way men interact with others on stage. At this time, men are assumed to maintain absolute authority and power. In European plays, men hold the power, which means they hold the right to speak and be heard. This is demonstrated by the overwhelming presence of men alone in dialogue, action and importance. The right to speak, is a sign of power. Silence is a sign of oppression. In neoclassical plays, men can be considered oppressive beings, since they hold a larger percentage of the dialogue, action, or prominence. The amount of time men spend listening to females in plays such as the Duchess of Malfi, Mandragola, Life is a Dream, and the Trickster of Seville is significantly lower than in the plays of Moliere, Racine, or Corneille. Men allow women to have at least a certain degree of agency and choice. In the English play, masculinity was depicted as the power to override the desires of others, and put their own desires first. For example in the Duchess of Malfi, “wealthy women in the power of male relatives, [were] treated as salable property. The penalty for seeking a portion of personal happiness was cruel indeed” (Webster iii). This type of interaction truly dampens the male’s ability to establish any type of meaningful relationship, as all love and admiration will be forced affinity instead of sincere companionship. French Theatre attempts to battle this stereotype, by allowing women to take significant action in the plots. Many Jesuit colleges outlawed the use of female clothing, or female roles on stage, but this was quickly refuted as Boussuet realized the ban “posed such great restrictions on the subject matter of plays”(Harris 45). The rejection of strict religious law, and eventually the outlawing of religious plays lead playwrights to realize the need for a more neutral gender appeal in France. It was quite revolutionary at the time, not only did they have women on stage, but they had stories with women in the title roles. (Even today, in 2011, only 16 percent of title roles are female) Such college productions include, Jezabel (1640), Suzanna (1653), Sainte-Catherine(1653), Le Mariage de Mars et de Minerve (1654), and Marthesie, premiere Reine de Amazones (1700). The final way in which male interaction on stage was radical in France, was the sharing of strong roles in the theatre. There was a sense of balance between masculine and feminine entities, whether or not the manifestation occurred in a male or female body. A male in a female body could be considered strong, and Louis XIV himself didn’t use feminine representation as degradation, but in fact viewed “female virtue and honour as the template for kingly restraint and continence” (Harris 59). He also believed interaction between genders to be less of a power play than that between classes. Degradation was not something that affected him, as he believed one should not be ashamed to be oneself in front of those who are of lower station. For example, it wasn’t embarrassing for him to be naked in front of his servants. To him, it “was shameful only to be naked before one’s own superiors.”(Harris 46). This allowed him the freedom to express his own feminine aspects without any fear of rebuttal, as he was of the highest station- the king. Thus, the acceptance of new forms of masculinity in France is owed greatly to the Sun King. The Sun king, lead not only by example, but also by connecting Racine to Maintenon’s school. By putting a man under the rule of a woman to make drama, he was inducing a shared role between masculine and feminine producers. Madame Maintenon, was so unhappy with one of Racine’s plays saying, her girls played it so well that they will never play it again. She was implying that his representation of women was too overtly sexual, and that it was scary to see the young girls succeed at playing the material. Thus under her command, he wrote Esther (1689) and Athalie (1691) which are considered to be extremely androgynous dramas. His role as playwright under the direction of a woman, changed views of possible interaction in theatrical production, but also changed the expected roles of men in Drama. The role of the man in drama during the 17th century, is full of anticipated responsibility. According to Hearn, “‘the price men pay for representing the universal is disembodiment, or loss of gendered specificity into the abstraction of phallic masculinity”(36). To sum it up, Hearn is saying that the male experience stands for the universal humanistic experience. It is men’s responsibility to disembody themselves to represent the truth for everyone, when in fact this ‘universal truth’ becomes a simple stereotype of phallic masculinity. Gender roles are challenged in French drama by approaching a more balanced distribution of roles, and alleviating the responsibility of men to represent all human experience. These roles include, the parts men and women played in drama, the roles represented in the family and in society. Men’s roles were compromised in French drama as early as 1542, which is very early to have female counterparts on stage. But in fact, Marie Fairet appeared on stage around 1542, and Marie Vernier followed as a popular actress between 1597 and 1629. As early as 1599, Isabella Andreini, a Commedia dell’ Arte actress’s presence “did much to encourage the acceptance of actresses in Paris,” (Brockett, 182). In 1661, Louis XIV appears as Diane in the Ballet Royal de L’impatience, making the female role the lead role. This increased the understanding of interchangeable roles, and sharing roles in plays with the talent of women. It was entirely acceptable to tell a story from the female point of view, or for nobility to use female roles as the focus of a piece. Apart from the logistics of gender participation in a production, there is gender participation in the story being told. Women have more important roles in plays in France than elsewhere, so it is feasible to assume that men will have to adjust their roles within the stories from misogynistic or patriarchal, to maintain a more moralistic and respectful role within the family and society. The expectation of the role of men within the family in 17th-century England was low. An English aristocrat “suggests that women rich enough not to depend on men financially were mad to live with Men, who make the Female sex their slaves”(Hearn 36). French drama also exhibits an imbalance of power in the sexes, but men are at least permitted to desire a role as a respectable husband or family member. In Le Cid, the protagonist plays his role as a good son, and tries, against all odds tries to prove he can be a good husband to her. There is no feeling of force or animalistic desire to prove himself; he is more or less humble in trying to woo her. In the Misanthrope, Alceste admits love to be against all reason and honesty, but he still sincerely attempts to win his lover’s heart. This is interesting, because Moliere reverses the expected roles of the sexes. His female character behaves like the Don Juan, lying in attempt to fulfill her own chauvinist desires, while the Male character is being manipulated. Even upon discovering the truth, Alceste, although angry, does not become violent, nor does he degrade her mindlessly. This is a significant change in the representation of men’s roles in love and in the family. It is a more rounded understanding of the individual, and a less insulting stereotype of the man who thinks only with his ‘sword.’ In Tartuffe, the scene between Tartuffe and Elmire shows his hesitation and thus he comes off as very shy and weak. This is a real situation for many men, but one of the first times it is depicted to this extreme in drama. Moliere shows that men, too, have doubts, dreams and desires about their families and love lives. It allows for a comical conversation between a man and a woman to occur, that would not take place if the decorum of male virility had been enforced. Moliere criticizes and challenges the roles of gender in society in many of his works. For example, in La Fille Savante, a widow states that she’s had seventeen children! According to Harris, Moliere is trying to draw attention “to the period’s paradoxical constructions of womanhood and femininity; in fulfilling her marital duties and producing many offspring, a woman will lose her femininity and become masculine”(81). Moliere often writes women into dominating roles as mothers and wives, expressing the possibility, that men may at some points want women to dominate or take responsibility in political control of the family and state. Representation of female domination occurs when men in drama choose to maintain a role in society that follows the lead of a woman. This challenged the expectation that men “were as embodied, irrational, and vicious as the misogynists claimed women were. Furthermore, men tyrannize over women rather than loving and protecting them as they claim to do” (Hearn 36). Examples of this include Racine working under a female producer for years, and the rebellion against decorum of both men and women in French society. The reason for legal leeway in gender depiction, is because, although the words ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ during the 17th century did not exist with separate definitions, France was ahead of its time in the recognition of gender as something that can be constructed and played on stage, in the same way class can be embodied or imitated. France “created a space for play, that is, a space for imaginable dissonances of gender over (supposedly) stable sexual bodies,” (Festa 62). The final proof that masculine identity was confronted in French Drama, is the subconscious use of language. In all European languages, gendering is a fundamental part of speaking, writing and communicating. Every single noun is labeled as masculine or feminine. Things that are strong, reliable, quick, stiff, hard, useful and creative are labeled to be masculine, and things that are soft, fluffy, weak, small, quiet, receptive, and passive are labeled as feminine. Grammar has everything to do with gender identification as language is the insight to the subconscious of a society. According to Karl Lepsius (1863), “only the most highly civilized ‘races’ and ‘leading nations in the history of mankind’ distinguished the genders...” (Romaine 67). The labeling of gender in France, took an interesting turn in the 17th century. Although the language stayed primarily the same, the labeling of male or female underwent intense confusion. For example, All words that end in -oire are feminine, except ‘armoire’ which was neutral in the 17th century. The masculine and feminine labeling is derived from Latin gendering, however there is a large shift of gendered language in 17th century French (Wall, 159). If the French “saw gender classification as the metaphorical extension of sex to the rest of the world (Darmesteter 236),” then the large shift of gender labels in the 17th century is telling of the mindset and outlook of society and the culture. For example, Episode, Epitaphe, Epithete, Equivoque... and many other masculine words became neutral during the 17th century and then feminine later on. Words such as Ulcere, Utensile were neutral, they could be both male and female, and became masculine years later. (Darmesteter 236). Language during this century in France became extremely androgynous, demonstrating the ever-changing perceptions of masculine and feminine labeling in society and every day life as demonstrated in the Theatre. Not only was androgyny a confrontation of masculine convention, but feminine applications to standard ‘masculine‘ nouns stimulates an even larger spectrum of gender understanding. For example, if you look at the most ‘masculine’ part of the body, the penis, and compare the colloquial term in French and in German, you’ll notice something that is more telling to the subconscious of a people that most want to admit. The penis, in French is ‘la bite’- feminine, and in German, ‘der schwanz’- masculine. One can directly understand how labeling can highly affect the mindset of men and women. This labeling is complicated as “People often equate males with masculinity and females with femininity, but they don’t automatically go together... gender is not a direct result of biological sex” (Coltrane 7). In conclusion, French dramatists understood the distinction between man and masculinity. They wrote about individuals and sparked a debate among the neoclassicist and the modernists. Thanks to these dramatists, the neoclassical expectation of men was deconstructed so that drama in the years to follow was able to include complex and individualized characters, not just wife-beaters and soldiers. France continues to revolt against the expectations of masculinity, as can be seen in the effeminate fashion accepted for men and the ‘masculine’ fashion accepted for women. The dramatists of the 17th century did not have the vocabulary to describe just how radical their works were, as they paved the way for transgenders, homosexuals, feminists, and cross-dressers to be visible and accepted in valid roles in entertainment we see today. Works Cited "Amazon.com: Manning the Margins: Masculinity and Writing in Seventeenth-Century France (9780472050581): Lewis C. Seifert PhD: Books." Amazon.com: Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & More. Web. 15 Dec. 2011. <http://www.amazon.com/Manning-Margins-Masculinity-Writing-Seventeenth-Century/dp/0472050583>. Bentley, Eric, and Roy Campbell. Life Is a Dream, and Other Spanish Classics. New York, NY: Applause Theatre Book, 1985. Print. Coltrane, Scott. Gender and Families. Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge, 1998. Print. Darmesteter, Arsène. A Historical French Grammar. Vol. 1. Paris: Macmillion and, 1899. Print. Festa, Lynn. "Personal Effects: Wigs and Possessive Individualism in the Long Eighteenth Century." Eighteenth-Century Life 29.2 (2005): 47-90. Print. Harris, Joseph. Hidden Agendas: CrossDressing in the 17th Century France. Vol. 156. Tübingen: G. Narr Verlag, 2005. Print. Kimmel, Michael S., Jeff Hearn, and Raewyn Connell. Handbook of Studies on Men & Masculinities. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2005. Print. Machiavelli, Niccolò, and Mera J. Flaumenhaft. Mandragola. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland, 1981. Print. Romaine, Suzanne. Communicating Gender. Mahwah, NJ: L. Erlbaum Associates, 1999. Print. Seifert, Lewis Carl. Manning the Margins: Masculinity and Writing in Seventeenth-century France. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 2009. Print. Wall, Charles Heron. The Students̕ French Grammar: a Practical and Historical Grammar of the French Language. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1878. Print. Webster, John. The Duchess of Malfi. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 1999. Print.
1 Comment
Prabhat Kumar
4/3/2019 08:05:42 pm
Crossdressing can save this world.....the truth kept hidden...
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