Lesbian Historic Motif Project: #30 – Bogin 1976 The Women Troubadours

Having mentioned it in passing in yesterday's entry, I thought it was a good time to cover two publications discussing the troubairiz Bieiris de Romans. When one is determined to avoid interpretations of lesbian desire in literary works, it's easy enough to point to the formulaic nature of of many genres. Even the language of personal correspondence can be composed of stock phrases and meaningless formulas. (How many of the people you have addressed a letter to are genuinely "dear" to you?) While it is impossible to argue that all written compositions should be taken at absolute literal face value, it is important to consider how we interpret literalness versus literary style differently based on pre-existing assumptions. No one would argue that the formulaicness of troubadour love poetry negates the existence of romantic love and sexual desire between men and women (though they will argue that it can't be used to prove that desire between a particular man and woman). But when a woman writes in the genre of love poetry or love correspondence to another woman, you will often encounter circular arguments that because it can't reflect genuine desire, it must be formulaic, and therefore dose not represent genuine desire. And yet, there it stands for whatever interpretation one wants to put in it: a lyric presented in the voice of a woman, addressed to another woman, using the language and motifs of erotic and romantic desire.