| Paper 1519-a | Noble Betrayers of their Faith, Families, and Folk: Some Frankish Women in the Arabian Nights
(Language: English)
Niall Christie, Corpus Christi College, Vancouver
Index terms: Crusades, Islamic and Arabic Studies, Mentalities, Women's Studies |
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| Abstract | Paper -a:
We will explore the role of some Frankish (western European) women in a number of tales from the Arabian Nights, tales that reflect Muslim reactions to the activities of the crusaders in the Levant. These characters act in ways that seem on the surface to be unacceptable: betraying and at times murdering their families and kinfolk, and undertaking martial activities not normally encouraged by medieval Muslim legal teachings on women's roles in society. Nevertheless, we can identify factors in these tales that make such seemingly reprehensible behaviour acceptable, and even praiseworthy, to the ears of their audience.
Paper -b:
Tricksters in Day 8 of the Decameron devise schemes to settle scores with adversaries, exploiting ambiguities inherent in linguistic and mercantile exchange to confuse and coerce. In 8.6-8.10 linguistic and contractual equivocation turns more menacing, the objective being not just redress of grievance but destruction of victims' hope and sabotage of readers' and characters' confidence in the signifying power of language. The arc of destruction culminates in 8.10 about merchant Salabaetto, wishing to sell his cargo in Palermo, and criminal Jancofiore, wishing to steal it, who vie for power by entering false data on the ship's bill of lading. Linguistic and contractual indeterminacy converge in 8.10 to reveal the fragility of bonds linking text, reality, and reader.
Paper -c:
Christine de Pizan's Livre de la cité des dames (1405) builds a formidable stronghold from the stories of virtuous women to defend them from their misogynist detractors. Dame Reason promises that their work will prove immoveable once they complete 'les fors fondemens et les gros murs' (I.iiij.), yet the narratives themselves involve a curious amount of movement between places. The paper would consider selected examples of travel in the three parts of the Cité and offer ideas about its valorizing role in the pro-feminine project.
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