Boys performing women (and men)

Abstract

This chapter looks at passages that beg for performance and at evidence for the recitation by boys of emotional scenes, often with female characters. The manuscripts discussed fit squarely into an already established pedagogical tradition that begins long before and continues long after the “middle” ages. The chapter addresses the medieval teaching of literature from a transhistorical as well as historical perspective and in ways that encourage comparison with other periods. It begins with a translation in The Loving Subject: Desire, Eloquence, and Power in Romanesque France. The poem, thirty lines long, falls into three parts. The first describes the narrator's emotional state and the boy who will try to distract him. Then comes the description of the boy's performance of the lament, which is artificial in a positive sense.