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Birthing Bodies
in Early Modern France
“This study, which explores a range of birthing bodies, female and male, and
analyzes striking associations of texts, will be of interest to all those—not just
sixteenth- and seventeenth-century scholars—who work on the complexities of
sex boundaries and non-normative gender identities.”
—Wendy Perkins, University of Birmingham, UK
The pregnant, birthing, and nurturing body is a recurring topos in early modern
French literature. Such bodies, often metaphors for issues and anxieties obtaining
to the gendered control of social and political institutions, acquired much of their
descriptive power from contemporaneous medical and scientific discourse. In this
study, Kirk Read brings together literary and medical texts that represent a range
of views, from lyric poets, satirists and polemicists, to midwives and surgeons, all
of whom explore the popular sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century narratives
of birth in France.
Although the rhetoric of birthing was widely used, strategies and negotiations
depended upon sex and gender; this study considers the male, female, and
hermaphroditic experience, offering both an analysis of women’s experiences to be
sure, but also opening onto the perspectives of non-female birthers and their place
in the social and political climate of early modern France. The writers explored
include Rabelais, Madeleine and Catherine Des Roches, Louise Boursier, Pierre de
Ronsard, Pierre Boaistuau and Jacques Duval. Read also explores the implications
of the metaphorical use of reproduction, such as the presentation of literary work
as offspring and the poet/mentor relationship as that of a suckling child.
Foregrounded in the study are the questions of what it means for women to embrace
biological and literary reproduction and how male appropriation of the birthing
body influences the mission of creating new literary traditions. Furthermore,
by exploring the cases of indeterminate birthing entities and the social anxiety
that informs them, Read complicates the binarisms at work in the vexed terrain
of sexuality, sex, and gender in this period. Ultimately, Read considers how
the narrative of birth produces historical conceptions of identity, authority, and
gender.
Women and Gender in the
Early Modern World
Series Editors:
Allyson Poska, The University of Mary Washington, USA
Abby Zanger
The study of women and gender offers some of the most vital and innovative
challenges to current scholarship on the early modern period. For more than a
decade now, “Women and Gender in the Early Modern World” has served as a forum
for presenting fresh ideas and original approaches to the field. Interdisciplinary
and multidisciplinary in scope, this Ashgate book series strives to reach beyond
geographical limitations to explore the experiences of early modern women and
the nature of gender in Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Africa. We welcome
proposals for both single-author volumes and edited collections which expand and
develop this continually evolving field of study.
Women, Imagination and the Search for Truth in Early Modern France
Rebecca M. Wilkin
Kirk D. Read
Bates College, USA
© Kirk D. Read 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Kirk D. Read has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be
identified as the author of this work.
Published by
Ashgate Publishing Limited Ashgate Publishing Company
Wey Court East Suite 420
Union Road 101 Cherry Street
Farnham Burlington
Surrey, GU9 7PT VT 05401-4405
England USA
www.ashgate.com
V
A ma femme.
A mes filles.
For Camille, Hannah, and Alice
This page has been left blank intentionally
Contents
List of Figures ix
Acknowledgments xi
Postpartum 185
Bibliography 191
Index 201
This page has been left blank intentionally
List of Figures
[T]outes les bourgeoises prirent congé d’elle, avec toutes sortes de reverence
et de courtoisie, et moy particulierement, qui sortis le dernier, et eus le
bonheur de voir l’enfant dont est question et du quel on attent le baptesme.
(Les Caquets de l’accouchée, 1622)
[All the women took their leave of her, with all manner of bows and curtsies,
and I in particular, who left last, and had the good fortune of seeing the
newborn in question, whose baptism we await.]
This moment from the seventh day of the Caquets de l’accouchée provides
an appropriate entrée into the thanks that are due to the many friends, family,
and colleagues who have played a role in the gestation, birth, and nurturing
of Birthing Bodies. The long-sequestered narrator, by turns witness to and
embodiment of his cousin’s own birthing body, implicates a community of
support and the excitement and anticipation of reproduction that is dear to
my heart. To the various midwives—readers, nurturers, listeners, editors,
enthusiasts—my undying gratitude.
Erika Gaffney’s unflagging support and prompt, professional response to
each and every query makes her a midwife on a par with her celebrated early
modern predecessor, Louise Boursier. Her skills were matched beautifully by
the prompt professionalism of her editing colleagues across the pond, most
notably David Shervington. The editorial acumen and generosity of Kerry
O’Brien (aka “Lady Ashgate”) bettered this project on every level, and her
sense of humor saved my soul. Katherine Dauge-Roth and Rose Pruiksma were
compassionate readers from the very beginning, and their confidence in my work
remains invaluable; our intellectual ties were formed in the ruelle of the Colby,
Bates, Bowdoin Early Modern Reading Group. Among these scholars I thank,
in particular, Cristina Malcolmson and Charlotte Daniels, whose reactions were
clarifying and transformative at important moments. Emily Kane’s intellectual
rigor and personal empathy remind me daily of the importance of abiding
friendship in and out of the academy.
The models for collegial midwifery abound in my academic life. From
my earliest, awe-struck apprenticeship in Renaissance literature with Nancy
Vickers to the mentors to whom she guided me—François Rigolot and Natalie
Davis—I have been most fortunate. At that same time, Anne Larsen provided
a model of edition and analysis of women’s texts to which I continue to aspire.
This generation of generous, intellectual collegiality to which I can only pretend
xii Birthing Bodies in Early Modern France
has been embodied for me most graciously in Kathleen Perry Long, whose
capacious intellect, warm regard, and dedication to the field so impress me.
Given the rather long gestation of this work, I have had the occasion to see
and evaluate many departmental and institutional arrangements with divergent
levels of kindness and support. I am the luckiest of all: Dick Williamson was my
first Bates mentor and a model of enthusiasm for scholarship in the context of a
deeply committed teaching life. The longstanding and unflagging support of my
cherished colleague, Mary Rice-DeFosse, the invaluable combination of playful
and profound intelligence and sustaining friendship of Alexandre Dauge-Roth, and
the unbridled positive regard of Laura Balladur have feathered my Bates nest most
warmly. I treasure the collegial ruminations over couvade and maternal envy with
friends Kathy Low and Lisa Maurizio that often preceded sumptuous meals with
their loving families. To Jill Reich, Dean of Faculty, my great appreciation for her
enthusiasm for my career, in and out of French; the Faculty Development grants
through her office were of great assistance. I thank several librarian colleagues at
Bates as well—Tom Hayward, Laura Juraska, and Chris Schiff—who performed
great feats of research, retrieval, and translation on several important occasions.
Will Ash provided patient and timely assistance with images. And finally, a warm
thanks to Georgette Dumais, supportive on many levels, who saw and copied more
versions of this manuscript than she might care to admit.
Having dedicated much of my scholarly life to feminist readings of
women’s work with many women mentors, it has been my great good fortune
to be sustained by generous men as well, whose regard for my career and, more
importantly, my heart made life so much more joyful: to Bruce and Dad, my
supportive family of origin; to Stuart Malcolm, my brother of choice and friend
of all time; to Bill Blaine-Wallace, brother of the soul; to Howard Rosenfield,
confessor and beacon of hope, much love and thanks.
And last and most, my deepest gratitude to the women who most support and
define my happiness in life: Edith Frey Read, whose birthing body gave me life
and whose spirit, long delivered of its earthly cares, still guides my way; Hannah,
my Women and Gender Studies daughter who reintroduced me to Judith Butler
and others; Alice, student of bodies of all stripes (whose hushed exclamation at the
pulpit of Saint-Etienne-du-Mont—“Dad, is that a pregnant man?!”—will stay with
me forever); and always and forever Camille, the mother, wife, and soul mate who
gave me this family and constant, patient, and abiding love.
***
A version of Chapter 2 appeared with the same title in Esprit généreux, esprit
pantagruélicque: Essays by His Students in Honor of François Rigolot, ed. Reiner
Leushuis and Zahi Zalloua (Geneva: Droz, 2008), pp. 141–58, and is reprinted
with the kind permission of Droz. A version of Chapter 3 appeared with the same
title in Gender and Scientific Discourse in Early Modern Culture, ed. Kathleen P.
Long (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2010), pp. 259–77, and is reprinted with permission.
A version of Chapter 4 was published as “Mother’s Milk from Father’s Breast:
Acknowledgments xiii
Madeleine des Roches in From Mother and Daughter: Poems, Dialogues, and
Letters of Les Dames des Roches/Madeleine and Catherine des Roches, ed. and trans. Anne
R. Larsen (Chicago, 2006), p. 53. All references to and translations of this work are taken
from Larsen’s From Mother and Daughter, with page numbers inserted parenthetically
in the text unless otherwise noted. For Larsen’s three excellent Droz editions of the des
Roches works, see the bibliography.
Birthing Bodies in Early Modern France
family that draw women away from the life of writing. Further along in the ode
she laments:
I have chosen the not-uncontroversial option of naming the authors by their first
names in order to distinguish them, and I have chosen not to overburden my prose by
spelling out the entire name. One would seldom see Pierre de Ronsard or Joachim Du
Bellay referred to as “Pierre” or “Joachim,” for instance, but had they published with their
progeny in such fashion, the conundrum would obtain to them as well, I can only presume.
See Joan DeJean’s treatment of this question in the introduction to Tender Geographies:
Women and the Origins of the Novel in France (New York, 1991), pp. 41–4.
I would refer the reader here to Figures I.1 and I.2 that I have chosen as illustrative
of Madeleine des Roches’s plight (and for the cover image for Birthing Bodies). This image
of the spectacularly pregnant woman was ubiquitous in the period, reappearing in multiple
versions and settings: posed here in the interior of the foyer of her home; lumbering
about the countryside (a context similar to that of other medical and magical anomolies
in, for example, Boaistuau’s Histoires prodigieuses) and floating on the page, completely
decontextualized in Ambroise Paré’s complete works (see Figure I.2). The caption reads,
Introduction
Figure I.2 Woman of multiple births, Ambroise Paré, Les Oeuvres d’Ambroise
Paré (1633). Courtesy of Dartmouth College Library [R128.7 P2
1633].
All the more curious then, that the entirety of Madeleine’s writing was published
collaboratively with her very own daughter, Catherine. While Madeleine’s first ode
is a lament over the lot of women challenged by the misogynistic traditions that
converge to impede their literary lives, her publishing history and her daughter’s
example are a stunning reversal of that sorry fortune. Witness the conclusion to
Catherine’s dedicatory epistle to her mother within this very same volume and
how it responds to whatever she might see as the demands on her own body’s
birthing potential:
“Dorotheae multiplici sobole gravidae effigies” (Paré 1633). She appears by turns burdened,
resigned, and even whimsically insouciant.
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