Pathologies of Love: Medicine and the Woman Question in Early Modern France by Judy Kem (review)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:

• Pathologies of Love: Medicine and the Woman Question in Early Modern France by Judy Kem
• Jeff Kendrick

Judy Kem, Pathologies of Love: Medicine and the Woman Question in Early Modern France. University of Nebraska Press, 2019, 287 pp.

Drawing on sources by men and women spanning the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Judy Kem elegantly delineates the evolution of received medical ideas and their relationship to important literary and sociological debates regarding women. Emerging from a view of women as inherently inferior to men or as incomplete or imperfect males, the so-called “woman question” often merged early modern medicine, women’s sexual difference, literary interpretation, and gendered language. Sometimes, male authors and, often more unequivocally, female authors rose to challenge this notion. Kem thoroughly and keenly evaluates how five authors “challenge long-held beliefs about the anatomy of women, as well as [women’s] role in both society and matters of love” (21).

Following a useful introduction in which Kem provides background information about received medical ideas concerning female anatomy and its influence on women’s supposedly inferior “natural” characteristics, she turns to consider first a female author, Christine de Pizan (1365-1434), and her participation in the Querelle de la Rose. Chapter 1 details Christine’s attack on Jean de Meun’s continuation of the Roman de la Rose. While some male writers may have seen the epistolary debate as an exercise in literary criticism to be played out for intellectual stimulation, Christine takes a more serious stance. She seizes the opportunity to promote a pro-woman agenda by undermining not only literary authorities but also widely read and followed medical works. Some contemporaries go on to either praise or emulate Christine. Unfortunately, as the debate morphs into the Querelle des femmes, Christine’s influence wanes due to the tendency of male authors to ignore or subsume her arguments. Kem contends for a complete literary history of Christine’s contributions to understand more fully the extent of the late medieval writer’s impact on the development of the querelle in sixteenth-century France.

In Chapter 2, the first of three male authors, Jean Molinet (1435-1507), is introduced. Molinet sought to moralize Jean de Meun’s work in his c. 1500 Romant de la rose moralisé. Molinet suggests that readers ought to see a “spiritual quest” instead of focusing solely on the physical or carnal side of Jean de Meun’s text. He also extends humoral theory in a way he claims is necessary to correct misreadings of the original romance. By classifying Jews, pagans, Christians and Muslims through gendered language and normative or non-normative sexual behaviors, Molinet “promote[s] a spiritual love quest, a [End Page 222] crusade against the Turks, [. . .] and excuses misogynistic passages in the romance [. . .]” (57) while at the same time sympathizing with largely illiterate women or inexperienced female readers.

Turning to Symphorien Champier’s 1502 Nef des princes and 1503 Nef des dames, chapter 3 draws our attention to “platonic love, marriage, and infertility” (77). While known for some positive views of women in the Nef des dames, Champier ultimately fails to advocate for full equality between the sexes. This is particularly true of the earlier work aimed at young princes, and Kem closely reads misogynic passages in the first Nef to demonstrate this point. A careful examination of Champier’s medical advice in the Nefs and in his later Latin works follows. In addition to instructions on educating children, Champier offers recommendations for and critiques of the origin and treatment of various sexual ailments. Kem also highlights the fact that in the Nefs, at least, Champier writes in the vernacular, underscoring the intention to address female readers directly. The last part of this chapter is dedicated to understanding Champier’s introduction of Ficinian Neoplatonism to France at this critical juncture. Despite his shameless self-promotion, Champier’s popularity rested in part on his thesis that men should treat women well (but not as equals) based on the spiritual standing of both sexes as God’s creatures.

Chapter 4 considers Champier’s close friend, Jean Lemaire de Belges, and his contribution to sixteenth-century conversations around two maux d’amour: excessive...