Adultery In Fiction

Female adultery is one of the most common topics of 19th century novels. In Portugal, this was to be one of the most discussed problems of that time, addressed in novels but also in critical or philosophical observations by famous intellectuals. Female authors were no exception to this rule and, contrary to popular belief, were not always the most tolerant judges. Maria Peregrina de Sousa (1809-1894) and Ana Plácido (1831-1895) both wrote about adulterous women and the consequences of their life choices. While both authors advise women against adultery, their points of view are markedly different. In this article, I aim to understand the message they chose to convey to their 19th century female readers.

La secuencia de las novelas de Perez Galdos La incognita , Realidad (novela) y Realidad (pieza teatral) revela mecanismos que pueden ser encuadrados en  la genesis del texto literario. Escritas entre 1887 y 1888, las dos novelas plantean el terma de la reescritura, y el odio al orden , que atraviesa las tres piezas, se convierte en su principio constructivo. Abstract The sequence of the works of Benito Perez Galdos La incognita , Realidad (novel) and Realidad (theatrical work) reveals mechanisms that can be framed in the genesis of the literary text. Written between 1887 and 1888, these two novels raise the topic of rewriting, and the hate towards orderliness , which spans the three texts, becomes its constructive principle.

El capítulo se centra en el estudio de tres poemas que, dentro de la producción de Ana Rossetti, nos permiten visualizar descripciones del hombre como objeto de deseo.
Partiendo desde un análisis textual, se da cuenta de la relevancia de la figura de la gaditana en la construcción de un imaginario innovador que subvierte los roles de género perpetuados por la tradición literaria.

The use of mimetic and diegetic modes of storytelling has significant implications for the meaning and interpretation of Wilkie Collins's (1824-1889) short story collection After Dark (1856). By using a framed narrative structure, Collins highlights the mimetic features of the stories in his collection. He creates a semi-factual atmosphere through dividing the story universe into two levels. On the first level, the discourse of the primary narrator and his wife emphasizes the mimetic nature of the six realistic stories recounted on the second level. Through following such a structure, the author seeks to create the illusion that the stories in the collection are biographical accounts. Verisimilitude, or lifelikeness, is therefore presented as the primary narrative property in After Dark. However, as this article mainly argues, the authorial discourse presented in Collins's general preface to the collection-which, to use Gerard Genette's term, is a paratext or threshold-dismantles the characters' realistic pretentions on the two levels of the storyworld. More precisely, by calling the six narrated stories in the collection the offspring of his own imagination, Collins's paratextual preface destroys the highlighted mimetic claims on the two levels in the storyworld.

El presente número monográfico de la revista Moara parte de la intención inicial de conocer diferentes manifestaciones en el ámbito de la literatura que reflejen la perspectiva de las mujeres escritoras con relación al adulterio, de observar cómo este asunto aparece tratado en sus obras y las posiciones en las que colocan a sus narradores y personajes. Así, uno de los intereses fundamentales es, bien, obtener el punto de vista femenino sobre una situación fruto de la construcción patriarcal de la sociedad alrededor de la cual giraron grandes obras de la literatura realista escritas por hombres o, también, estudiar obras en las que el reflejo del adulterio escape de las convenciones habituales en la literatura que trata este tema. Este número presenta así diversos estudios que se aproximan a la perspectiva femenina del adulterio en las últimas décadas del siglo XIX y las primeras de XX. A través de estos textos, resulta posible ver cómo una moral claramente masculinizada por los preceptos propios del patriarcado es tomada con naturalidad por algunas de las autoras, quienes, en consonancia con la mentalidad de la época y las consecuencias del adulterio recogido como delito en los códigos penales de las distintas naciones, contemplan la infidelidad femenina como un ataque a la dignidad, al honor del marido, a la honra de la propia mujer y a las propias estructuras familiares.
Por otra parte, encontramos también posturas empáticas con las mujeres adúlteras que buscan un giro en las convenciones sociales y morales con respecto al adulterio y a la libertad femenina castigada siempre por una doble moral. Este número de Moara presenta una serie de artículos que analizan narrativas sobre el adulterio femenino y la perspectiva de las mujeres con relación al adulterio como elemento temático central en diferentes espacios geográficos: Italia, España, Portugal y Brasil.

Este artículo presenta un análisis completo del auto sacramental firmado  por  Lope  de  Vega, La  adúltera  perdonada  (c.  1608-1612).  Este  estudio  se  ha llevado a cabo desde diferentes perspectivas y, para tal fin, se ha atendido a las distintas partes que participan de la construcción del texto dramático. Se han recuperado y completado diversos análisis sobre aspectos específicos del auto, como el papel de la música (Alín, 1983 y Flórez Asensio, 2012), las reminiscencias a romances y canciones tradicionales (Nogués Bruno, 2017) o el problema del honor (Duarte, 2017). La utilidad de este trabajo radica en su carácter global, pues abunda en aspectos menos atendidos, como las similitudes y diferencias entre el auto de Lope de Vega y su fuente principal, la perícopa bíblica del Evangelio juanista —texto polémico y desprestigiado por diversos autores— o la caracterización de sus personajes. Asimismo, ofrece una original reflexión sobre una cuestión aún inédita, la moralidad del comportamiento final de la protagonista y la importancia de la absolución de la adúltera en ambos textos.

Isabel de Galceran, la protagonista de la novel·la curta de títol homònim i de la posterior Vilaniu de Narcís Oller, és un exemple vívid de les expectatives socials patriarcals i rígides que les dones burgeses vuitcentistes patien. En aquesta comunicació analitzaré el seu cas, perquè el seu cos es transformat en el camp de guerra entre els comportaments subversius i els comportaments preceptius. Malgrat encarnar la feminitat normativa –dona àngel de la llar–, rep igualment les crítiques d’un entorn provincià i decadent. Primer, és rebutjada per les altres dones a causa de l’enveja que els inspira la seva bellesa i el seu estil. A continuació, és calumniada per tal de tacar el seu honor i desacreditar la carrera política del marit. Finalment, l’autor examina els diferents càstigs amb els quals eren sancionats els comportaments transgressors femenins: l’exclusió de la societat, la difamació, la negació de la maternitat (la prohibició de veure els seus fills o l’avortament espontani), l’internament en un hospital psiquiàtric i la mort (tant autoimposada com per una impressió forta). Per tant, el càstig és la ferida de la paradoxa a la qual està abocada qualsevol dona burgesa vuitcentista travessada pels dos ideals femenins principals: la donna angelicata i la femme fatale.

« Le XVIe siècle vénitien : une culture de l’adultère », in Camenae. Savoirs et pratiques du Moyen Âge à l’époque moderne, n° 27, 2021, en ligne : https://www.saprat.fr/media/e4c27a763e63ec0063088ad38deafef6/6-camenae-27-article-coletti.pdf

« L’adultère féminin et la noblesse vénitienne : entre identité de classe et tabou social », in Criminelles. Crimes féminins entre Histoire et littérature du Moyen Âge à l’époque moderne, Toulouse, Collection de l’É.C.R.I.T., 2022, p. 23-53.

_Harvest: Jahangirnagar University Studies in Language and Literature_ (2023) - Volume 37

Abstract

This paper offers an analysis of Kuber-Kapila's extramarital love affair under the lens of disability studies in Bengali author Manik Bandyopadhyay's novel Padma Nadir Majhi (The Boatman of the Padma) (1936). The concept of "ableist gaze" comes from the ideology of ableism and gaze/ spectatorship. It is rooted in the social expectations of normalcy, a desire for attaining 'perfect' body. Ableist gaze or non-disabled gaze has a sexual underpinning; it prefers to see able-bodied people as sexual beings. Especially women with physical handicap or impairment are treated as sexually less appealing. The "to-be-looked-at-ness" of the perfect female body, as film theorist Laura Mulvey puts it, engages an ableist point of view. The ableist male gaze privileges 'able-bodied' women as they are seen to be capable of evoking sexual attraction. This gaze-based sexual ability, accoording to Kirsty Liddiard, is termed as "sexual ableism". Sexual ableism inferiorizes and marginalizes disabled people. The two women in Kuber's life - the 'able-bodied' Kapila and disabled Mala - complicate his family life because he prioritizes his ableist gaze towards Kapila. This paper argues if Mala's dis/ability is the core reason behind Kuber's extramarital desire for Kapila. The paper also addresses the fact that Kapila's 'able-bodied-ness' and Kuber's ableist gaze construct and deconstruct each other. 

Keywords: sexual ableism, ableist gaze, able-bodied-ness, disability, extramarital affair, heterosexual coupling

This paper proposes a discussion about the possible consequences for rape, as presented by Terence in the comedy The Eunuch, mainly in one of Pythias’ lines to Parmeno. For this purpose, some examples of representation of legal aspects that appear throughout the play have been chosen, in order to demonstrate that the resolution through the law would not be something foreign to the context. Then, the necessary conditions are presented for the configuration of this type of crime, especially regarding the position of women in society, a point of dispute throughout the dialogue. Finally, the testimonies that point to possible punishments for Chaerea’s act are indicated, which are in line with Pythias’ allusions, although not with the end of the play itself.

RESUMO: Propõe-se uma discussão acerca das possíveis consequências para o estupro, conforme é apresentado por Terêncio na comédia Eunuco, principalmente, em uma das falas de Pítias a Parmenão. Para isso, escolhem-se alguns exemplos de representação de aspectos jurídicos que aparecem ao longo da peça, de modo a se demonstrar que a resolução por meio da lei não seria algo estranho ao contexto. Em seguida, apresentam-se as condições necessárias para que houvesse a configuração desse tipo de crime, principalmente no que concerne à posição da mulher na sociedade, ponto de disputa ao longo do diálogo. Por fim, indicam-se os testemunhos que apontariam as possíveis punições para o ato de Quérea, as quais condizem com as alusões de Pítias, ainda que não com o fim da peça.

The architect is not the only artist who conceives architecture. As the most common spatial and material framework in which human life takes place, architecture also appears in other arts like painting, cinema, theatre and literature, where it is an unavoidable subject of conception and reflection. Among those arts, it is on the architectures that are present in literary texts that we will focus in this article. Unlike the architect, the writer conceives architecture with the technical conditions and the aesthetic particularities of the literary medium. Thus, the experience we make of literary architectures radically differs from the one we make of built architectures, which can be experienced first-hand and navigated at will. To appraise a literary architecture this contribution will use two analytical categories from Gerard Genette’s narratology, namely: the Voice or the situation of the narrator in relation to the story he tells, and its implications in the representation of arch...

Las mujeres que leen son peligrosas. Con un libro delante y a salvo de las miradas ajenas, se evaden del espacio doméstico en el que se las recluye físicamente antes y después del matrimonio, conquistan un espacio de libertad e independencia al que solamente ellas tienen acceso. Pero, al igual que ocurriera en el clásico cervantino, el intento de las mujeres decimonónicas de hacer realidad los deseos suscitados por la ficción a pesar de los obstáculos de su entorno social, acaba en tragedia. En la presente comunicación se compararán algunas de las novelas de adulterio realistas de la segunda mitad del siglo XIX, Madame Bovary (1856), La Regenta (1884-1885), El primo Basilio (1878) y Cécile (1886), con la bilogía formada por La incógnita y Realidad de Benito Pérez Galdós. La inadaptación social del personaje, cuyas identidad y autoimagen se construyen a partir de las novelas rosa que consume, con su entorno queda de manifiesto en la protagonista de ambas obras galdosianas, Augusta Cisneros. Así, con tal de realizar los sueños que la ficción novelesca le inspiran y rehuir el hastío y la insatisfacción del matrimonio infeliz con Tomás Orozco, se embarca en diversas aventuras adúlteras. Tal y como ocurrió con Emma Bovary (novela que incluso dio lugar al síndrome conocido como bovarismo), unas lecturas erróneas parecen ser la causa de la ligereza moral femenina. Pero, ¿son malas las lecturas o las lectoras?

¿Qué tienen en común la limeña Blanca Sol y la polaca Izabela Łęcka? La primera, protagonista de una novela de título homónimo publicada en 1888 por Mercedes Cabello de Carbonera, es una joven ambiciosa nacida en el seno de una familia burguesa venida a menos. La segunda, protagonista de La muñeca (Lalka), novela publicada en 1887-1889 por Bolesław Prus, es la hija mimada de la aristocracia polaca finisecular. En la presente comunicación se pretende contestar a la pregunta inicial utilizando las herramientas de la literatura comparada. Así, después de la lectura minuciosa de ambas obras y la investigación de sus contextos históricos y literarios, se ha procedido a la descripción contrastada de sus protagonistas femeninas. Se considera de especial interés contrastar dos culturas que, a pesar de estar tan alejadas geográficamente, han tenido dos producciones literarias de temática tan relacionada. Ambas protagonistas, cada una a su manera, se rebela contra su realidad y se enfrenta a aquello que la sociedad esperaba de ellas. Izabela se opone al matrimonio y coquetea con otros hombres una vez prometida; Blanca se disputa los roles de género y se infiltra en terrenos habitualmente vetados a las mujeres. Así y todo, el desenlace es trágico: la educación femenina y la situación social impiden que la rebelión tenga éxito.

Dos años después del inicio de la Transición democrática, el artículo 449 del Código Penal Español todavía no se había modificado y el adulterio, incluido en el título “De los delitos contra la honestidad” (Art. 449 a 452 CP 1944), seguía siendo una infracción que se castigaba con la pena de prisión menor (de seis meses y un día hasta seis años). El proyecto de ley remitido en 1977 por el gobierno de Adolfo Suárez, en respuesta al movimiento femenino que tomó las calles bajo el lema de “Yo también soy adúltera”, despenalizaba el adulterio y el amancebamiento y era una mejora considerable en la situación de las mujeres.
En la presente comunicación se analizarán la doxa y los distintos discursos públicos en torno a la despenalización del adulterio: a) los institucionales y legales (el Código Penal de 1944, las declaraciones de diputados y representantes de los partidos políticos, los Boletines de la Conferencia Episcopal Española y las cartas del programa radiofónico de Elena Francis); b) los literarios (ya desde las clásicas novelas de adulterio realistas de la segunda mitad del siglo XIX); y c) los periodísticos (en forma de recortes de prensa de periódicos como El País, Última Hora o la revista Triunfo, entre otras, y viñetas de la revista humorística El Papus). Así, se interpretarán las herramientas persuasivas y manipulativas y los mecanismos de formulación lingüística empleados para crear la opinión pública, tanto a favor como en contra de la modificación de la ley. 
Cuando los duelos para salvaguardar el honor del marido agraviado han quedado en el olvido, solamente la ley puede defender la moral pública y someter a las mujeres cada vez más liberadas por los cambios de la Transición. Por ello, mientras las integrantes de la Segunda Ola Feminista se mueven de Barcelona a Salamanca para apoyar a dos de las últimas adúlteras castigadas de España, el discurso masculino se resiste a aceptar la alteración del orden social, aunque mayoritariamente se muestra a favor de la ineficacia de la transformación de una infidelidad −que por otra parte es un asunto privado, no público− en un delito tipificado por el Código Penal. Con el adulterio despenalizado ya solo les quedaría pedir la legalización del divorcio (que no se consiguió hasta 1981), pero eso es otra historia.

12 Irrigation: The Political Economy of Personal Experience Carol Reeves and Alan W. France As teachers of writing, we have inevitably formed our professional identi-ties around a central ethic—that composition is neither a stepchild nor a bastard of the traditional arts ...

The author aims to present the work of Evdokia Nagrodskaia, a Russian author now fallen into oblivion. To do this, he briefly discusses the literary context of the time and her biography, before analyzing in greater depth her book The Wrath of Dionysus, which was a bestseller in Russia in the early 20th century. He tries, through the analysis of this novel, to rediscover a novelist both despised by the Russian intelligentsia for writing popular literature, and strongly criticized by the former censors for treating themes related both to female adultery, homosexuality and lesbianism. By that he’s trying to show that Nagrodskaia is primarily a novelist avant-garde which deals with libertinism far more than pornography and that her freethinking is both sexual and political.

España, mientras viva, se enfurecerá rompiendo a golpes-o a voces, con blasfemias-el concepto en que el barroco, el jesuita y el nacionalizador pretendan encerrarla. Rafael Dieste (1983,130) In 1930s Spain discussions about the genre of the novel and the role of Cervantes' Don Quixote in shaping Spain's understanding of its own identity as well as how the nation was perceived abroad, were the order of the day. This was understandable, given that the novel is not just a genre, but the modern genre whose invention, attributed to Cervantes, was seen as a literary achievement tantamount to the formulation of the postulates of individual consciousness in Descartes' philosophy. The irony that Spain, a nation long in decline and, arguably, in opposition to whose culture European modernity defined itself, should be the birthplace of the novel, was not lost on many young intellectuals, active supporters of the Second Republic, for whom the meaning of the Cervantine heritage was n...

The sitcom is distinguished from drama or soap opera by having what is described as a closed or "circular" narrative structure wherein the plot returns to the original stasis, defined by Curtis as the re-situation (1982). In my book Situation Comedy, Character, and Psychoanalysis: On the Couch with Lucy, Basil, and Kimmie (2018), I analysed character behaviour to argue that the protagonist, in their attempt to dispel or deny the incident that has triggered the story, shapes the narrative in a way that reflects the "entrapment" of the show's characters, a defining characteristic of this form of comedy (Mills 2005; Mintz 1985). While I argued that the sitcom begins with character, I now extend that premise to posit that the comedy emerges from the character's reaction/actions to events that threaten their sense of self articulated at an early stage of script development: the beat sheet. In this chapter, I critically examine a beat sheet from one of my own pilots, At the Bar (2016), to determine how beats inform the shape of the narrative structure in this form of comedy.

Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès – 25 mars 2022 – Maison de la Recherche – Salle F315

Les études sur la présence des femmes dans le droit pénal relèvent souvent un paradoxe : les femmes ont beau ne représenter qu’une infime partie des statistiques criminelles, leurs crimes pâtissent d’une forte charge symbolique qui mène à la constitution d’archétypes-repoussoirs – de l’empoisonneuse à l’infanticide en passant par la maquerelle, la sorcière ou la femme adultère. Dans ce contexte, la foule des femmes criminelles que l’on retrouve dans la littérature – des fabliaux médiévaux aux nouvelles et pièces théâtrales de l’époque moderne – apparaît autant comme la traduction sur le papier de phénomènes sociaux diffus que comme une étape de l’élaboration des archétypes, influençant à son tour l’écriture de la loi et la pratique quotidienne de la justice.
Or, si ne manquent sur le sujet ni les études historiques ni les analyses de figures littéraires, force est de constater que ces approches sont rarement menées de front, ce qui revient à sous-estimer le rapport dialectique entre les deux aspects.
En outre, alors que les réflexions d’ensemble sur la criminalité féminine à l’époque contemporaine sont riches – comme il ressort de notre bibliographie indicative –, les études sur le Moyen-Âge et l’époque moderne souffrent encore d’une approche sectorielle, dans laquelle se détachent les figures de la prostituée, de la femme adultère et de l’empoisonneuse, chacune dotée de sa propre tradition historiographique. Nous nous efforcerons donc d’instaure

Si nce the early 1990s, various features and subjects of Vladimir Sorokin’s literary work have attracted a great deal of comment and analysis: the “aesthetics of the disgusting,”1 metadiscursivity,2 turpism and pastiche,3 self-reflecting poetics,4 transgression,5 etc. The first wave of critical reception focused on the œuvre’s scandalous extraordinariness; it thus served to familiarize the unfamiliar and to remark on the oddness of Sorokin’s works. The amount of commentary and analysis contributed significantly to the canonization of Sorokin’s œuvre, which Dirk Uffelmann stated as early as the year 2000.6 Thus, Sorokin has now become a widely acknowl-

Iris Murdoch, as a creative writer, tries to live up to her ideals as she has expressed them outside her fiction. For her, one important attempt in this direction is not to control her characters, but to let them be free from the patterns within her own mind. Her ideal is to submit them to the test of reality and contingency, to make them act as real people act, to avoid making them unnaturally heroic or saintly, to prevent them being agents of the author’s fantasy or wish fulfilment. We find her intention fulfilled throughout her fiction. The Black Prince  is one of the famous novels of Murdoch that provides a good example of this ideal.

Although there have been various stylistic studies of news, the use of narrative stylistic approach in analysing news has not been common. The aim of this research is to analyse the stylistic domains and narrative components in the Associated Press (AP) news. It was carried out descriptive-qualitatively. Ten news were studied by using stylistic units of analysis based on model of narrative structure in Simpson (2004) and Jahn’s classification of narrative components (2005). After completing the analysis, it was found that news is one category of narrative and it contains the use of six stylistic domains and nine narrative components. The six stylistic domains are textual medium, sociolinguistic code, action and event, point of view, textual medium and intertextuality. In addition, there are also occurences of the nine narrative components: narration, focalization, narrative situation, action, story analysis, tellability, tense, time and narrative mode.

The “erotic” Greek novels place at the centre of the plot an orthodox, heterosexual, monogamous, and lifelong love affair between a young man and a maiden. By contrast, the so-called “open” or “fringe” novels (a group of diverse works which share some basic common traits, such as a linear biographical narrative, non-organic structure, a trickster protagonist, the mixture of many storytelling genres, and a fluid textual transmission) treat eros in a starkly different manner: love stories are pushed to the margins of the narrative, in peripheral episodes or inserted tales; and instead of the idealized, model love of the erotic novels, there is a variety of deviant passions, forbidden liaisons, or sexual aberrations. The creators of the “open” texts consciously adopted the exact opposite practice than the erotic novels, in order to clearly demarcate their genre as a different mode of fictional storytelling. The pathology of love thus became a marker of generic identity.

Four examples are adduced from the corpus of the “open” novels to illustrate this proposition. In the Alexander Romance the main narrative is completely devoid of eroticism, even in episodes which would have been suitable for such treatment. The only love affair is the adulterous liaison between Nectanebo and Queen Olympias, an unlawful and immoral relationship which leads to the birth of Alexander. This is placed in the preliminaries of the story, provides the starting point for the plot, but has no further reverberations after the initial chapters. Similarly, the Life of the Philosopher Secundus begins with a scene of near-incest, which motivates the rest of the narrative. The Historia Apollonii regis Tyri reworks some of the standard themes of the canonical erotic romances (the idealized monogamous love, the lovers’ separation and reunion, the maiden who struggles to preserve her virginity) but arranges them in unusual new combinations and distorts their form. This idiosyncratic fragmentation of the traditional love plot is prefaced by a horrendous episode of father-daughter incest, which sets the action in motion but is forgotten afterwards. Finally, the Life of Aesop includes a series of tales about various aspects of perverse eroticism (exhibitionism, nymphomania, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, rape, incest) — a veritable anthology of deviant sex dispersed through the narrative. These episodes are either inserted paradigmatic stories or secondary incidents without a central role in the plot. In these respects, the Life completely overturns the standard pattern of the erotic novels.

Abstract:
A cumulative look upon the fictional spectrum of Updike‟s works right from Rabbit Run to S furnishes to the reader a study in total irony in which language, the mind, and the physical self meet to produce the Orphic voice of nothingness. Updike‟s fictional personages, the men and women who inhabit the novelistic cosmos of his works make a mockery of manwoman relationship by tearing apart the institutions of marriage
and family. Conjugal harmony in Updike‟s novels symbolizes the vanishing Orpheus who leaves behind a “stringless lyre” which we,
the moderns and the postmoderns inherit as a “prized possession”. In Couples (1968) the man-woman relationship becomes nauseating as the reader is made to witness a group of married men and women virtually swapping themselves as husbands and wives. The central protagonists of the novel namely Piet Hanema, Foxy Witman, Angela, and Freddy Thorne make a mockery of the institution of marriage and domesticity by
indulging in adultery with gusto, thereby turning irony into grotesquerie. In The Witches of Eastwick (1984) the reader is made to witness a quadruple combination of „four humans‟, three women and one man. The combination of these depraved humans forms the very epicenter of the demonic air of Eastwick which breeds „witches‟ in the form of Alexandra, Sokie, and Jane. The powerful and irresistible longing and desires of these women create the thunderstorms of fission and fracture which not only shatter the institutions of marriage and family life but also create the Satanic spectacle of sensuous celebrations in the form of pure evil. Darryl Van Horne becomes a Secular Satin let loose in society to create havoc by conducting dangerous games of sex and
erotica. The paper will attempt to analyze thematically, symbolically, and narratively all the aforesaid dismemberment of gendered equations between these fictional men and women of John Updike in the Couples and The Witches of Eastwick. In both these novels, gendered men and women of Updike speak in different tones of absurdity and meaninglessness, try to sound sacramental but eventually end up by being demonic.Keywords: Man-Woman Relationship, Dismemberment,
Demonic Human World

Although Boccaccio and Cervantes are rightfully bound by their excellence in storytelling in the novella genre, adultery as a connection between their works has curiously not yet been sufficiently investigated. The words and actions of unfaithful wives Peronella, Monna Ghita, and Lidia on day 7 in Il Decameron, a day in which trickery of husbands (carried out either for love or self-preservation) is the theme, provide a template for Camila in El curioso impertinente. These married women assert themselves as protagonists in their respective stories, and all three successfully continue their extramarital affairs while simultaneously maintaining the public façade of marital honor.
Innovating on their adulterous schemes, Camila also establishes a happy ending between herself, husband, and lover, yet hers is ephemeral, due to circumstances beyond her control.

Presented at BACLS Virtual Conference 2020, online during the COVID-19 pandemic

This conference paper examines how two American novels published following the 2007/8 global financial crisis, Jess Walter’s The Financial Lives of the Poets (2009) and Martha McPhee’s Dear Money (2010), narrate that crisis through representations of the household. The combination of neoliberal economic policy and a financial crash triggered by primary and secondary mortgage markets leads to new kinds of representations in these texts. The two novels are fundamentally about housing and domestic space: Poets is about the threat of foreclosure, and Dear Money is about the trading of mortgage debt. However, in these texts, housing and finance are both realized alongside and through adultery. As the breaking of the marital contract, adultery is, as Andrew Hoberek argues, a “symbolic stand-in” for the 2007/8 mortgage crisis because of its ability to function as that which translates the macro-financial crisis into a micro-domestic crisis. For both novels’ protagonists, adultery threatens their marriage and therefore the social construction of the household, which is held in conjunction with a global financial crisis that threatens material ownership of the physical house. As well as this, in both texts the respective affairs create further financial downturn at both the micro and macro levels. This paper argues, then, that adultery is more than just a symbol or metaphor in financial crisis fiction. It is simultaneously reflective and constitutive of financial anxiety and crisis: adultery is cast as the catalyst for domestic (and subsequently financial) breakup, but the conditions for adultery itself are created by financial (and subsequently domestic) downturn. Configuring a household as both a material object and as a social-economic object is rooted in concurrent and contingent financial and marital rupture.

The mind has not been a central concept in sociology. According to the traditional view, the mind is located in the brain, and is thus bereft of observable social facts for sociological studies. At most, it is a concept of psychology or philosophy. This article argues that the history of the modern novel provides large amounts of data about minds and consciousness. Even though individual novels are fictional and invented, the continual reception of these fictional presentations verifies their social relevance. The article argues that fiction establishes the main social discourse on possible private thoughts, thus having a great impact on how we understand and speak about minds and human interiority. The argument is advanced by selectively reading a long-standing narratological debate on literary minds and their exceptionality. The article renounces the cognitive theories of 'mind-reading' as overly optimistic and metaphorically misleading, resorting instead to the phenomenological theories of 'primary intersubjectivity', which help in understanding how novelists are able to invent credible minds in the first place. La mente imposible de la sociología Resumen La mente no ha sido un concepto central en sociología. Según la visión tradicional, la mente se sitúa en el cerebro y por consigui-ente está desprovista de hechos sociales observables para los estudios de sociología. Como mucho, es un concepto de psicología y filosofía. Este artículo argumenta que la historia de la novela moderna proporciona una gran cantidad de datos sobre las mentes y la conciencia. A pesar de que las novelas individuales sean ficción y estén inventadas, la recepción constante de estas presentaciones ficticias verifica su pertinencia social. El artículo argumenta que la ficción crea el discurso social principal sobre los pensamientos pri

Adultery is often the subject of comic descriptions, focusing on the tricks of unfaithful wives or bold lovers and the stupidity of cuckolded husbands, and possibly inspired by popular adultery tales. Dramatization of adulterous affairs, though common in mime, was rarer in Greek comedy. It occurs in a few plays with contemporary setting, as well as in travesties of related myths (e.g. Helen’s abduction, or Zeus’ love for Alcmene).

Antiphanes, active from the 380s to the late fourth century BCE, was the most prolific dramatist of Middle Comedy. He probably wrote not only for Athenian festivals but also for other cities or itinerant troupes, and produced various types of play: mythological travesties, as well as domestic comedies with love plots and recognitions, heralding the style of New Comedy. He developed many comic figures which became standard characters in later drama (misanthrope, miser, superstitious man, boastful soldier, rustic, parasite, cook). He liked producing innovations on stock motifs and deftly exploited the resources of comic language.

deikelistai (meaning “mimes” or “impersonators”) was the local name for the performers of a type of folk comic play in Sparta. According to the Laconian historian Sosibius, their unsophisticated performances, conducted in simple language, concerned themes such as the stealing of fruit (also a traditional part of Spartan boys’ education) and the foreign doctor. Both these elements are paralleled in other varieties of Doric comedy (Sicilian, Megarian), as well as in Attic comic theatre. Sosibius considered this type of spectacle as old, and Plutarch testifies to its existence in the fifth century BCE.

Glycera, a hetaira, is presented as Menander’s mistress in sources of the Imperial age. Alciphron invented an exchange of letters between the couple, discussing the invitation of King Ptolemy, who wishes to lure Menander to Egypt. This love affair is a biographical fiction, probably developed in Hellenistic times. Glycera’s figure is based on homonymous female characters of Menander’s plays, as well as on a historical hetaira of the same name. The relationship between Diphilus and the hetaira Gnathaena (attested earlier in anecdotes by Lynceus and Machon) may also have served as a model.

Lynceus of Samos, a pupil of Theophrastus, produced plays of New Comedy in Athens, although the report that he competed against Menander is doubtful. His writings also include a treatise on Menander and a collection of anecdotes about figures of Athenian social life (hetairai, parasites etc.), sometimes involving famous comic poets of the time. These may rely on first-hand experience or information.

Machon, a poet of New Comedy, produced his plays in Ptolemaic Alexandria, probably in the context of the early Ptolemies’ efforts to promote their capital as a centre of comic art. His surviving titles and fragments suggest typical New Comedy plots, with misunderstandings, recognitions, and food themes, but also include uncommon elements (e.g. a cook fond of eating his own dishes). Machon also published the Chreiai, a collection of versified anecdotes about celebrated parasites, hetairai, and other figures of social life, many of whom are mentioned in Middle and New Comedy. His work displays coarse humour and caustic satire.

Maeson, a character of Megarian comedy, was said to have been created by a Megarian actor of the same name (a tradition of doubtful historicity). Maeson appeared as a cook, servant, sailor, and in other dramatic roles, being portrayed as ignorant, uncouth, and gluttonous. A slave mask of Attic New Comedy was also called Maeson. A proverb about ingratitude is attributed to “Maeson the Megarian”, though on obscure grounds.

Megara, a city between Athens and Corinth, was known for its local kind of farce (Megarian comedy). Megarians claimed to have first invented the genre of comedy around the early sixth century BCE, a doubtful assertion. Aristotle was familiar with comic performances at Megara in his time, but no dramatic festivals are recorded in later periods.

Megarian comedy, an improvised popular farce produced at Megara, was known to fifth-century Athenian audiences. There was rivalry between the comic traditions of Athens and Megara: poets of Old Comedy condemned Megarian jokes as vulgar, while the Megarians claimed to have first invented the genre of comedy. The Attic playwrights’ references, combined with later testimonia, reveal some of the motifs and characters of Megarian comic drama: obscene jests, slaves tossing nuts to the audience, the hungry Heracles cheated of his dinner, a cook and glutton named Maeson, possibly also the stealing of fruit and the drug-seller. The scene of the Megarian man visiting Dicaeopolis in Aristophanes’ Acharnians may parody material from Megarian performances.

Persia, the head of a large Eastern empire in Classical times, is presented in Greek comedy as a land of excessive wealth and luxury. Its typical comic traits include a fairytale abundance of gold and precious objects, massive consumption of food and drink, rich exotic clothing, pompous officials and courtiers, voluptuousness, and effeminacy. Old Comedy, in particular, proudly recalls the past Greek victories in the Persian Wars and considers contemporary Persia a great, dangerous, but alluring power.

Riddles, a favourite pastime in Attic symposia, became popular especially in Middle Comedy. They are propounded and solved on stage in numerous scenes, often set in a sympotic context. A particular group of them concern culinary items described by a comic cook in high-flown riddling language. Spectators enjoyed the dramatized sympotic game, presumably attempting to find the solution before the characters did. Riddles also functioned as a form of humour and were sometimes subjected to parody as a stock comic theme.

Susarion, named as the inventor of comedy in Hellenistic and later sources, is variously described as an Attic poet active in the deme of Icaria or as a Megarian. These variant traditions presumably stem from the rivalry between Athens and Megara concerning the origins of comedy. The single fragment attributed to Susarion is a later forgery. His historical identity, when not doubted, becomes the object of widely differing theories.

Thais, a brazen, profit-loving hetaira, was a central character in Menander’s play of that name and later became the emblematic type of the comic courtesan for Roman authors. In an epigram of Martial, the young Menander is presented as having a love affair with Thais. This is meant as a playful metaphor for the composition of the corresponding comedy; it does not imply the existence of a broader biographical tradition about Thais and Menander.

Timon, mentioned in Old Comedy as the emblematic misanthrope, was a proverbial figure well known to the audience. Aristophanes’ Lysistrata suggests that he became a man-hater because of the wickedness of his fellow-men, a theme later developed in Lucian’s dialogue Timon, which perhaps reworks comic material. The traditions about Timon may have influenced the portrayal of other theatrical misanthropes, such as Menander’s Knemon.

The author aims to present the work of Evdokia Nagrodskaia, a Russian author now fallen into oblivion. To do this, he briefly discusses the literary context of the time and her biography, before analyzing in greater depth her book The Wrath of Dionysus, which was a bestseller in Russia in the early 20th century. He tries, through the analysis of this novel, to rediscover a novelist both despised by the Russian intelligentsia for writing popular literature, and strongly criticized by the former censors for treating themes related both to female adultery, homosexuality and lesbianism. By that he’s trying to show that Nagrodskaia is primarily a novelist avant-garde which deals with libertinism far more than pornography and that her freethinking is both sexual and political.

An examination of Wealth 160-69 sheds further light on the portrayal of adulterers (moichoi) in ancient Greek comedy and oratory. The moichos is routinely presented as undermining the financial fortunes of a household as well as its domestic harmony. On the Greek comic stage, and in the Athenian courtroom, the moichos is less a Don Juan figure than a treacherous intruder, intent on exploiting his seductive charms to the detriment of another male citizen's household. Such an understanding of the Greek moichos helps to shed light on figures such as the Eratosthenes of Lysias 1, the youthful lover in the concluding scenes of Wealth, and Apollodorus' presentation of the former slave Phormion. It also yields further insights into popular attitudes toward women and marriage.

In ancient Greek culture the comic portrayal of gods was already practiced in the Homeric epics (e.g. Iliad XIV 161-351, XXI 391-433, 470-513) and was essentially a manifestation of folk religiosity, which combined laughter and piety into an intrinsic unity. Similar burlesque narratives about divinities, including farcical slapstick and obscenity, are known from other ancient civilizations, such as the Hittites and the Egyptians. Demodocus’ song about the amours of Ares and Aphrodite (Odyssey VIII 266-366) exploits the narrative patterns of popular adultery novellas and transposes the scabrous storyline to the world of the Olympian gods. Afterwards, the Homeric technique inspired the mythological comedies of Classical Attic theatre, in which the divine personages were assimilated to the stereotypical roles of the comic stage.

Thèse soutenue le 2 décembre 2016 à l'Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès. Jury : Chiara Lastraioli (présidente), Frédérique Verrier (rapporteur), Davide Canfora (rapporteur), Jean-Luc Nardone (directeur de recherche), Ivano Paccagnella (directeur de recherche), Bernard Doumerc. Absence de mention selon la réforme de 2016.

Cette thèse confronte les deux figures féminines de la prostituée et de la femme adultère dans la société vénitienne du XVIe siècle. Elle aborde ces topoi dans une approche pluridisciplinaire qui mêle la lecture de textes littéraires tant publiés qu'inédits à l'étude des sources judiciaires de la Sérénissime. Loin de se contenter d'opposer une pulsion de liberté individuelle aux velléités de contrôle de l'appareil répressif, cette recherche entend préciser l'origine des tensions sexuelles dans les contradictions économiques, politiques et sociales qui régissent les rapports de genre dans la République de Venise. Dans un premier temps est définie la norme sexuelle et amoureuse de la société moderne, puis est précisée l'existence de plusieurs zones grises au sein desquelles amours licites et illicites se superposent, en particulier au moment de la séduction. Cette réflexion permet d'éclairer les spécificités de l'adultère féminin et de la prostitution comme formes de sexualité extra-conjugale. Nous pouvons ainsi tracer une histoire de la gestion de la prostitution par le gouvernement vénitien, qui reconnaît aux amours vénales un statut légal dont la classe dirigeante peut tirer profit, tout en montrant la complémentarité à son égard de la poésie antiputtanesca, souvent expression des préoccupations de cette même classe sociale. L'adultère est de la même manière envisagé comme une pratique contradictoire, violemment combattue par la loi mais partie intégrante du processus de formation des jeunes hommes avant leur mariage. Un aspect important du travail de recherche effectué consiste également dans la présentation de poèmes antiputtaneschi inédits, souvent anonymes, dont nous cherchons à reconstruire la riche intertextualité.


Discussed the 2 december 2016 in Toulouse, Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès.

This dissertation aims to confront the two archetypes of the prostitute and the adulterous woman in the XVIth century Venetian society. Taking a multidisciplinary approach, this text examines literary works – well known and unpublished – and the legal sources of the Serenissima. Looking beyond binary oppositions between individual desires for freedom and the repressive control apparatus by the State, this study works to clarify the ways in which the sexual tensions come from the economical, political and social contradictions which governed gender relationships in the republic of Venice. It first analyzes sexual and sentimental norms of the early-modern society. It will then define the ways in which licit and illicit love overlap, especially during the key moment of seduction. This will allow us to elucidate the specificities of female adultery and prostitution as forms of extra-conjugal sexuality. It will then be possible to trace the history of prostitution's management by the Venetian government. The latter recognized thea legal status of venal love, from which the ruling class could benefit. But we will also show how antiputtanesca poetry reflects the concerns of that social class. Adultery may similarly be seen as a contradictory practice, violently condemned by the law but part of young men's socialization before their wedding. Finally, one important aspect of this research stands in the presentation of various unpublished antiputtaneschi poems, often anonymous: we will display their rich intertextuality.

María Gertrudis Hore (1742-1801), poetisa de renombre y religiosa calzada, fue mujer casada. Con la autorización de su esposo, Esteban Fleming, ingresó en el monasterio de Santa María del Arrabal, en 1778, con 35 años de edad. El 14 de febrero de 1780 hizo voto de clausura para siempre. Interesarnos por las verdaderas razones de su tardía entrada en religión nos condujo a la reconstitución científica de su trayectoria personal a través del estudio de su universo tanto social como religioso, apoyándonos en la reconstitución de su obra (hoy día casi ignorada) y en la atmósfera del Cádiz del setecientos. Palabras claves : poetisa, monja, misterio, Cádiz, Ilustración, libertinaje, secreto, viaje, clausura.
ABSTRACT : María Gertrudis Hore (1742-1801) was a famous poetess and religious. At the age of 35, in 1778, she entered a Franciscan convent under her husband’s authorization. Febrary 14th 1780 she took vow of silence for ever. Then, in order to try to understand the reasons why she entered religion at such a great age, we were thus able to come up with a social universe study and bibliographical reconstitution of her poetry ; to know more about this multi-facetted character of the historical period in the Age of Enlightenment.
Key words… : poetress, religious, mistery, Cadiz, Enlightenment, libertinage, secret, trip, clausure.