“You List to Abuse Yourself”: Justifying Sex in Arcadia

IF 0.2 2区文学 0 LITERATURE

MODERN LANGUAGE QUARTERLY Pub Date : 2023-06-12 DOI:10.1215/00267929-10574810

C. Scozzaro

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Philip Sidney’s Old Arcadia features two knights who commit instances of violent sex, for which they are sentenced to death. Ultimately, they are saved, and this essay asks why—and how—the language of self-abjection is used in the service of justice. Exploring the rhetorics of mercy and masochism, the essay examines the poetic justifications for violent sex that draw on the Petrarchan tradition. Sidney’s prose romance explores the social and narrative implications for living out the conventions of erotic poetry. His suffering lover occludes his violent actions by insisting that love is a mutual injury, and thus he is a victim too. Since it contains conventional apologies for ravishment, and provocations to touch, the blazon may also be considered a precursor to violent sex. Finally, Sidney rescues his knights, unpersuasively, with a marvelous and “strange conceit” that replaces the demands of justice with the demands of romance as a genre.

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“你列出了虐待自己的清单”:为阿卡迪亚的性行为辩护

菲利普·西德尼(Philip Sidney)的《旧阿卡迪亚》(Old Arcadia)讲述了两名骑士因暴力性行为而被判处死刑的故事。最终，他们得救了，这篇文章问为什么——以及如何——自卑感的语言被用于为正义服务。这篇文章探讨了仁慈和受虐的修辞，探讨了利用彼特拉克传统为暴力性行为辩护的诗意。西德尼的散文浪漫主义探索了生活在情诗习俗之外的社会和叙事含义。他受苦的爱人坚持认为爱是一种相互伤害，从而掩盖了他的暴力行为，因此他也是一个受害者。由于它包含了传统的对强奸的道歉，以及对触摸的挑衅，这个徽章也可能被认为是暴力性行为的前兆。最后，西德尼用一种令人难以置信的“奇怪的自负”拯救了他的骑士们，这种自负取代了对正义的要求，取而代之的是对浪漫的要求。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

MODERN LANGUAGE QUARTERLY LITERATURE-

CiteScore

0.60

自引率

0.00%

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期刊介绍： MLQ focuses on change, both in literary practice and within the profession of literature itself. The journal is open to essays on literary change from the Middle Ages to the present and welcomes theoretical reflections on the relationship of literary change or historicism to feminism, ethnic studies, cultural materialism, discourse analysis, and all other forms of representation and cultural critique. Seeing texts as the depictions, agents, and vehicles of change, MLQ targets literature as a commanding and vital force.