“Latin Literature, Christianity, and Obscenity in the Later Roman West" (original) (raw)

The Ethics of Obscene Speech in Early Christianity and Its Environment

Biblical Interpretation: A Journal of Contemporary Approaches, 2010

e Ethics of Obscene Speech explores the rhetorical valence of obscenity as well as the arguments of those who would seek to control it. As Jeremy Hultin acknowledges, only a very few early Christian writers explicitly identified obscenity as a problem. Nevertheless, injunctions regarding the importance of decorous speech became ever more important, culminating in Clement of Alexandria's lengthy treatment of the topic. Offering a comprehensive account of foul language at it appears in ancient literature, comedy, poetry, graffiti, love charms and other sources, Hultin places early Christian rhetoric within a broad discursive context, cataloging the terms employed and arguments put forward by a wide spectrum of writers. e book also discusses the many warnings against obscene speech, which was associated with loose morals and a degraded character by philosophers and moralists. In the process, Hultin collects a treasure trove of literary evidence, offering new insights into Christian warnings against aischrologia (vulgar talk). Early Christian writers may not have agreed fully on the nature and consequences of an unbridled tongue, but, when they did address the problem, they adopted perspectives quite similar to those of their neighbors. e introductory chapter sets the stage by considering obscenity as a linguistic phenomenon. Displacement is fundamental to the identification of words as offensive-words are perceived as foul when they are used at the wrong place, at the wrong time, or in the wrong way-and avoidance of obscene speech therefore serves as a gauge of social status. Still, a witty riposte, employed at the right time against an opponent, or the ritual utterance of foul language, whispered, for example, to ward off the evil eye, were expected features of ancient discourse. Philosophers may have worried aloud about the impact of obscenity on the young, but foul language remained pervasive and popular. Next Hultin considers the importance of foul speech to group definition. e Pythagoreans, known for their masterful control of the tongue, can be fruitfully compared to Cynics, famous for their outrageous speech. Early Stoics also rejected the notion that words can be obscene: since language is part of nature, words related naturally to their objects, and simply speaking a word could pollute neither the speaker nor the audience. Beginning in the second century BCE, however, there was a perceptible shift in Stoic thought, away from an earlier emphasis on "natural" names and free speech, which could include vulgar words, and toward a disciplinary rhetoric emphasizing the importance of closely controlled speech patterns. As Seneca put it, "as the speech, so the life," and thus a true gentleman avoids unseemly vocabulary. Interestingly, a corresponding discussion of the use of obscenity is missing from Jewish writings. Instead the biblical books adopt a discreet, euphemistic vocabulary for sex acts, genitalia, defecation and masturbation and, though often explicit in content, prophetic metaphors carefully avoid offensive words. e rabbis also preferred euphemism to explicit description, though they were willing to apply foul language to descriptions of idolaters. In Jewish literature, then, the earliest direct warnings

Obscenity: social control and artistic creation in the European Middle Ages

1998

The nearly twenty essays in this volume deal with obscenity in medieval culture. They represent the most wide-ranging attempt ever to probe the natures, origins, and consequences of obscenity in medieval literature, art, theater, and law. Although a core is devoted to obscenity in medieval French literature (where the fabliaux have elicited more previous attempts to come to terms with obscenity than has any other type of medieval literature), other contributions to the volume explore manifestations of obscenity in cultures and languages of Scandinavia, Germany, Ireland, Wales, Byzantium, and even western Slavdom.

The Politics of Obscenity in the Age of the Gutenberg Revolution

Routledge eBooks, 2021

Having studied for nearly ten years the actual uses of the words obscene and obscenity since their appearance in French at the beginning of the 17th century until the Revolution necessarily forged a look-or reinforced a character-more "nominalist" 1 than who questions just as legitimately the presence of the obscene in the periods prior to the use of the word, in the Middle Ages or in the Renaissance. Without wishing to defend any standard, any territory, I would like to offer here, as a researcher rather than as a "villain ", some reflections on different research approaches and thus question again 2 the apparent solution of continuity tearing apart "first modernity" and "Classicism".