Sodomy, Masculinity, And Law In Medieval Literature by William E. Burgwinkle

Surfacing as a category of identity and an increasingly cited term of abuse, sodomy is less a 'topic in itself' in medieval texts than it is 'textual seasoning' that 'never fails to make itself felt' (3–4). Burgwinkle's ultimate project is to interrogate how the emergent discourse of sodomy in the twelfth century was linked to a new elite, heroic masculinity of medieval romance. He proposes instead to 'imagine sodomy' in medieval texts ' 'out' of the grip of the homo/hetero distinction' (15), as well as complexly positioned within the political, social, and cultural formulations of the twelfth century. Moreover, the tendency to identify sodomy with specific sexual acts, if not identities, is too narrow a historical method, in Burgwinkle's judgment. Burgwinkle's use of law here and in his title is not restricted to the legal but includes the psychoanalytic understanding of it as the foundational prohibition that produces the subject and provides access to the symbolic. An utterly blurred category is more like what sodomy is in twelfth-century texts, according to Burgwinkle, alternately marking resistance to and support of the law. Burgwinkle's book offers a complex and refreshing departure from those studies of sodomy that would position it against medieval heteronormativity. Utterly confused though it may be, sodomy continues to serve as the minority category to heteronormativity in many accounts of medieval sexuality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Sodomy, Masculinity, and Law in Medieval Literature: France and England, 1050–1230.

Sodomy, Masculinity, And Law In Medieval Literature by William E. Burgwinkle