Response to Trumbach’s “The Transformation of Sodomy from the Renaissance
to the Modern World and Its General Sexual Consequences”: Part 2
The former part of this topic is found at the below link:
A Study of Eighteenth-Century Sexualities: Homosexuality Part1 (1/2) - Mutsuko Takahashi BLOG
In this blog entry, I examine eighteenth-century sexuality from the perspective of homosexuality based on Randolph Trumbach's article, entitled, "The Transformation of Sodomy from the Renaissance to the Modern World and Its General Sexual Consequences".
Sodomitical allusions in artistic works after 1700
We can observe how criminal punishment affected sodomy in Figure 3: The Women-Hater's Lamentation which portrays the felonious aspect of sodomy. It should be noted that it is not artwork to produces an ideology of the time, but the ideology of the place where the artwork was created might produce the artwork. However, the opposite will happen when it is delivered to other countries where there are different cultures and ideologies, for the new trend can be delivered by it.
Due to the outflow of media, such as Figure 3, representing guilty of sodomy, the trend towards sodomy after 1700 has changed from the neighbors of England first and gradually spread to southern and eastern countries. The statement of Trumbach, including that of Pflugfelder and Sommer, that the new regime had reached Japan in the eighteenth century is disputable because Japan had been in national isolation from 1639 to 1854 without contacting foreign countries. To support this idea, Leupp’s explanation can be considered of value. He states that a trend of the Western culture which considers sodomy as guilty had flowed into Japan as of the opening of the country to the world in the middle of the 19th century.
Since Figure 2: Jacopo Amigoni is a work of 1740, it might have been affected by the new regime after 1700. One might observe a metaphorical allusion to the punishment for sodomy in this painting under the mask of lesbianism. This painting is obviously influenced by Ovid’s Metamorphoses. In the picture, Callisto and Jupiter who transformed into Diana are depicted. Callisto is portrayed as an adolescent girl contrary to the maturity of Diana/Jupiter. In the context of Greek mythology, Jupiter hiding under the mask of Diana gets Callisto pregnant. The real Diana became resentful at Callisto’s ruined chastity; thus, she turned Callisto into a bear and killed her.
This painting is remarkable in casting light on the question of how a woman loves another woman. More to the point, Jupiter who transformed into Diana was physically a woman, but she had a substitute for phallus that can make Callisto pregnant. Having a substitute for the phallus, a person who was available to take the male role held a leading position. On the other hand, the real Diana turned Callisto into a bear by magical power and killed her. This incident can prove that the real Diana also has the phallic power to ruin her.
Diana/Jupiter can symbolize a type of hermaphrodite. Jupiter hiding under the mask of Diana violated Callisto’s immature body. Callisto’s immature body also symbolizes some type of hermaphrodite. Callisto was ruined twice: first, by fake Diana’s physical phallic power, and secondly, by real Diana’s symbolical phallic power. Seen in this light, the dramatization in this painting is metaphorically implying the punishment of sodomy. The dramatization in this picture also involves an aspect of transvestite, for a man, Jupiter, is wearing the female flesh, Diana’s mask, as a garment on his very soul.
Figure 4: Hammersmith (1781) obviously involves the theme of a transvestite. Although the relationship of the Ladies of Llangollen had been said as a romantic friendship, it was also exposed to curiosity as sapphists. Considering Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman was published in 1792, however, their relationship could be the earliest model at the dawn of feminism.
As is mentioned thus far, the new sexual regime that occurred in England, France, and the Netherlands after 1700 can be the result of the first impact of the expiration of the Licensing of the Press Act in 1695. Feather points out that a large number of publications were released to the literary market since then. As a result, publications of women writers were also increased. Moreover, the literary market enlarged due to the literacy improvement and the expansion of readership along with the rise of the middle class; hence, the change had covered all social classes.
Bibliography
Callanan, James Aloysius Stanislaus. A History of Literary Censorship in England, Harvard College, 1925. The Internet Archive Digital Library
https://archive.org/stream/historyofliterar00call/historyofliterar00call_djvu.txt
“Callisto”, Theoi Greek Mythology: Digital Library.
https://www.theoi.com/Heroine/Kallisto.html
Feather, John. A History of British Publishing, PART I: The Early Modern Book Trade, 3: The Book Trade and the State, London: Routledge. 2006. EBSCO host.
Leupp, Gary P. Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan, Berkeley: University of California Press. 1995.
OED, “homosexual”, Definition A.1.a. “Characterized by sexual or romantic attraction to, or sexual activity with, people of the same sex; involving or relating to same-sex desire or sexual activity”. First appearance in John Addington Symonds’ A Problem in Modern Ethics, viii,60.
Rictor Norton (Ed.), “The Women-Hater’s Lamentation, 1707”, Homosexuality in Eighteenth-Century England: A Sourcebook, 1999.
http://rictornorton.co.uk/eighteen/hater.htm
Ribalta, Francisco. “Christ Embracing St. Bernard”, Web Gallery of Art.
https://www.wga.hu/html_m/r/ribalta/francisc/christsb.html
“Two Impures of the Ton, Driving to the Gigg Shop, Hammersmith”, Yale University Lewis Walpole Library Digital Collections.
http://findit.library.yale.edu/catalog/digcoll:2755477
Venette, Nicolas. The Mysteries of Conjugal Love Reveal’d, Eighteenth Century Collections Online.
