Fecal Matters in Early Modern Literature and Art: Studies in Scatology

215 Pages·2016·13.113 MB·English

by  Jeff Persels (Editor), Russell Ganim (Editor)

FECALMATIERS IN EARLY MODERN
LITERATURE AND ART
To Erasmus, patron saint of intestinal disorders
Ora pro nobis.
He works with human excrement - what is rejected, what is accounted of 110 worth
to mankind - and ill it I suppose he hopes to discover something that is of worth.
- Robertson Davies, The Rebel Angels
Fecal Matters in Early Modern
Literature and Art
Studies in Scatology
Edited by
Jeff Persels
Russell Ganim
Studies in European Cultural Transition
Volume Twenty One
General Editors: Martin Stannard and Greg Walker
First published 2004 by Ashgate Publishing
Published 2016 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX 14 4 RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA
Routledge is an imprint oft he Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
Copyright © Jeff Persels and Russell Ganim 2004
The editors have asserted their moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to
be identified as the editors of this work.
All rights reserved. No part ofthis book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used
only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Fecal matters in early modem literature and art : studies
in scatology. - (Studies in European cultural transition)
1. French literature - 16th century - History and criticism
2. French literature - 17th century - History and criticism
3. English literature - Early modem, 1500-1700-History and criticism 4. German
literature - Early modem, 1500-1700 - History and criticism 5. Scatology in literature 6.
Scatology in art
I. Persels, Jeff II. Ganim, Russell
809.9'3353'09031
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fecal matters in early modem literature and art : studies in scatology I edited by Jeff
Persels and Russell Ganim.
p. cm. - (Studies in European cultural transition)
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 0-7546-4116-3 (a1k. paper)
I. Scatology in literature. 2. Scatology in art. I. Persels, Jeff. II. Ganim, Russell.
III. Series.
NX650.S28F43 2004
700' .453-<1c22
2003023570
ISBN 13: 978-0-7546-4116-2 (hbk)
Contents
List of Figures vii
General Editors' Preface ix
Acknowledgments x
Notes on Contributors xi
Introduction: Scatology, the Last Taboo xiii
1 The 'Honorable Art of Farting' in Continental Renaissance
Literature 2
Barbara C. Bowen
2 'The Wife Multiplies the Secret' (AaTh 1381D): Some Fortunes
of an Exemplary Tale 14
Geoffrey R. Hope
3 Doctor Rabelais and the Medicine of Scatology 24
David LaGuardia
4 'The Mass and the Fart are Sisters': Scatology and Calvinist
Rhetoric against the Mass, 1560-63 38
leff Persels
5 Community, Commodities and Commodes in the French Nouvelle 56
Emily E. Thompson
6 Pissing Glass and the Body Crass: Adaptations of the Scatological
in Theophile 66
Russell Ganim
7 Scatology as Political Protest: A 'Scandalous' Medal of Louis XIV
leanne Morgan Zarucchi 85
8 Foolectomies, Fool Enemas, and the Renaissance Anatomy of
Folly 96
Glenn Ehrstine
9 Holy and Unholy Shit: The Pragmatic Context of Scatological
Curses in Early German Reformation Satire 109
losef Schmidt, with Mary Simon
VI FECAL MATTERS
10 Expelling from Top and Bottom: The Changing Role of
Scatology in Images of Peasant Festivals from Albrecht DUrer to
Pieter Bruegel 118
Alison G. Stewart
11 Tamburlaine's Urine 138
Joseph Tate
12 'The Wronged Breeches': Cavalier Scatology 154
Peter J. Smith
List of Works Cited or Consulted 173
Index 189
List of Figures
Figure 7.1 Title page of of false edition of Menestrier's Histoire du Roy
Louis Ie Grand, with added line 'N.E. [Nouvelle Edition]
Augmentee de 5 Planches' ('New Edition with Five
Additional Plates'). British Library Printed Books
1488.dd.6, by permission ofthe British Library. 87
Figure 7.2 Page 42 offalse edition of Menestrier's Histoire du Roy Louis
Ie Grand, describing two false medals, obverse and reverse.
British Library Printed Books 1488.dd.6, by permission of
the British Library. 90
Figure 7.3 Page 42 (bis) offalse edition of Menestrier's Histoire du
Roy Louis Ie Grand, depicting two false medals, obverse and
reverse, described in Figure 7.2. British Library Printed
Books 1488.dd.6, by permission of the British Library. 91
Figure 7.4 Detailofthe 'scandalous' medal of Louis XIV, Pope
Alexander VIII, and the chamber pot. From false edition of
Menestrier's Histoire du Roy Louis Ie Grand. British Library
Printed Books 1488.dd.6, by permission of the British
Library. 92
Figure 8.1 Thomas Murner, title woodcut from Narrenbeschworung
(1512). Courtesy of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin
PreuBischer Kulturbesitz, 19 ZZ 4100. 100
Figure 8.2 Thomas Murner, title woodcut, Von dem grossen
Lutherischen Narren (1522). Courtesy of the Bayerische
Staatsbibliothek, Rar. 870. 101
Figure 8.3 Thomas Murner, Karsthans' 'enema,' Von dem grossen
Lutherischen Narren (1522). Courtesy of the Bayerische
Staatsbibliothek, Rar. 870. 104
Figure 8.4 Thomas Murner, 'foolectomy,' Narrenbeschworung. (1512).
Courtesy of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin PreuBischer
Kulturbesitz, 19 ZZ 4100. 105
viii FECAL MA TIERS
Figure 9.1 Thomas Murner, Karsthans' 'enema,' Von dem grossen
Lutherischen Narren (1522). Courtesy of the Bayerische
Staatsbibliothek, Rar. 870. 115
Figure 10.1 Pieter Bruegel, Peasant Kermis, oil painting, c. 1567-68,
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. 120
Figure 10.2 After Sebald Beham, Kermis Oxford, detail, Woodcut, after
c. 1535, Ashmolean Museum.Oxford. Photo: author. 123
Figure 10.3 Sebald Beham, Peasants Behind a Fence, engraving, 1547,
no. 10 in the series Peasant Festival-Twelve Months,
British Museum, London. Courtesy of the Photographic
Collection, Warburg Institute, University of London. 127
Figure 10.4 Pieter van der Borcht, Peasant Kermis, etching, 1553,
Grafische Sammlung, Albertina, Vienna. 130
Figure 10.5 Pieter Bruegel and Bartholomaeus de Momper (publisher),
Kermis at Hoboken, etching and engraving c. 1559,
Rosenwald Collection, Photograph © 2002 Board of
Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington. 131
Figure 11.1 Robert Recorde, The Vrinal of Physick 13r• From the
collection of the Royal College of Physicians of London. 142
Figure 11.2 Robert Recorde, The Vrinal of Physick 18r. From the
collection of the Royal College of Physicians of London. 143
General Editors' Preface
The European dimension of research in the humanities has come into sharp focus
over recent years, producing scholarship which ranges across disciplines and
national boundaries. Until now there has been no major channel for such work.
This series aims to provide one, and to unite the fields of cultural studies and
traditional scholarship. It will publish the most exciting new writing in areas such
as European history and literature, art history, archaeology, language and
translation studies, political, cultural and gay studies, music, psychology, sociology
and philosophy. The emphasis will be explicitly European and interdisciplinary,
concentrating attention on the relativity of cultural perspectives, with a particular
interest in issues of cultural transition.
Martin Stannard
Greg Walker
University of Leicester