Monsters, Gender and Sexuality in Medieval English Literature

Abstract

For Old English literature in particular, the search for evidence of “sex, gender, and desire” can be frustrating, but Oswald’s chosen tools of analysis—Lacanian and feminist theories of subjectivity and desire—are particularly useful for eliciting these hidden cultural elements from sometimes uncooperative texts. The first half of the book deals with this less yielding material, and it begins its investigation in Chapter One with the visual depictions of monstrosity in the illustrated Wonders of the East. In these illustrations, Oswald argues, the depiction of monstrous geni- tals produces a violent response in some audiences, resulting in the erasure of potentially offending penises and breasts. In some cases, the genitals are not even drawn in the first place, or are covered up with other images, yet comparison with other manuscripts allows Oswald to establish the nonpresence of these genitals as a conscious choice by the artists, since they do exist in the “metatext.” These different forms of erasure—scratching out, “never drawing,” and revision—point to strong anxieties on the part of both artists and audiences. Yet these erasures are not just examples of Anglo-Saxon prudery, Oswald suggests, since the same artists and audiences allow other depictions of genitals to remain; instead, they are responses to the threat that these hybrid monsters pose to the boundary be- tween human and monster. Their reproductive capacity, she claims, is even more