today on Fanfictional Tropes That Are Older Than You Think
So for the conference paper I'm been working on I've been looking at Frankie Rubenstein's Dictionary of Shakespeare's Sexual Puns and Their Significance, which has some stuff that is pretty useful particularly since Rubenstein does cite Richard II on occasion, unlike every other book I have on dirty jokes in Shakespeare, meaning that I have a competent authority to cite for some of the things I'm saying in the paper. (It is, for example, reasonably handy for purposes of my academic work that the entries in the book that make reference to Richard II suggest, when read collectively, that Henry Bolingbroke is basically a gay supervillain with a perpetual hard-on.)
It is, at any rate, a little reassuring, when one spends a lot of time contemplating this sort of thing, to find discussion in books like this of lines you hadn't thought of as innuendo -- sort of an "oh yay, I'm not the biggest perv in the house" kind of relief -- but on the other hand, some of those entries yield things like this (this is from the entry for despair, which suggests that references to despair as "black" or "foul" in Shakespeare are usually poo jokes of some sort):
R2, II.ii.67: 'Who shall hinder me? I will despair,' says the Queen, whose 'inward soul' (11, 28) -- INWARD (bowel) SOUL (arse) -- trembles, and in labour delivers a monstrous prodigy (see SOUL), in an old conceit that the arse and not the womb delivers evil men, such as Cloten (CRAFTY, Cym) and Richard [III] (STIGMATIC, 3H6).
In other words: QUEEN ISABEL IS TALKING ABOUT ASSBABIES, PEOPLE.
(I realize that this is not really akin to the fanfictional use of the trope, which is more about mpreg and how there wouldn't really be any other place for them to come out, but still. Assbabies!)
Well, so Rubinstein says. I don't think I am convinced. The rationale for this being an "old conceit" is in the entry for stigmatic, anent Richard III (though Rubenstein also cites Measure for Measure 3.1, "thine own bowels, which do call thee sire"), and seems to have to do with taking the word bowels strictly as meaning "lower digestive tract/parts of the body associated with the production of crap," which meaning was of course available in the Renaissance, but it could also mean the interior of the body generally (which is why people went about having bowels of compassion and beseeching people in the bowels of Christ and whatnot: we talk about the Sacred Heart, but nobody really wants to think about the Sacred Viscera).
I think, anyway. This is one of those issues where it's not clear how far there actually are multiple meanings and how much of that is actually just the result of squeamish critics not wanting to talk about poo -- somewhat analogous is the degree to which people talk about "the cult of male friendship" and it's hard to tell how much of that is reasonably accurate cultural studies and how much is just an exaggeration on the part of homophobic old-school critics. I hate running into those sorts of questions.
I still don't think Queen Isabel is talking about assbabies.
It may also be worth noting that in the Measure for Measure passage referenced above Pauline Kiernan, in the less scholarly Filthy Shakespeare, takes "bowels" as a pun on "balls," which is not very convincing either.
Also, I am pretty sure this is the grossest entry I've ever made. Possibly I should put it behind an lj-cut.
It is, at any rate, a little reassuring, when one spends a lot of time contemplating this sort of thing, to find discussion in books like this of lines you hadn't thought of as innuendo -- sort of an "oh yay, I'm not the biggest perv in the house" kind of relief -- but on the other hand, some of those entries yield things like this (this is from the entry for despair, which suggests that references to despair as "black" or "foul" in Shakespeare are usually poo jokes of some sort):
R2, II.ii.67: 'Who shall hinder me? I will despair,' says the Queen, whose 'inward soul' (11, 28) -- INWARD (bowel) SOUL (arse) -- trembles, and in labour delivers a monstrous prodigy (see SOUL), in an old conceit that the arse and not the womb delivers evil men, such as Cloten (CRAFTY, Cym) and Richard [III] (STIGMATIC, 3H6).
In other words: QUEEN ISABEL IS TALKING ABOUT ASSBABIES, PEOPLE.
(I realize that this is not really akin to the fanfictional use of the trope, which is more about mpreg and how there wouldn't really be any other place for them to come out, but still. Assbabies!)
Well, so Rubinstein says. I don't think I am convinced. The rationale for this being an "old conceit" is in the entry for stigmatic, anent Richard III (though Rubenstein also cites Measure for Measure 3.1, "thine own bowels, which do call thee sire"), and seems to have to do with taking the word bowels strictly as meaning "lower digestive tract/parts of the body associated with the production of crap," which meaning was of course available in the Renaissance, but it could also mean the interior of the body generally (which is why people went about having bowels of compassion and beseeching people in the bowels of Christ and whatnot: we talk about the Sacred Heart, but nobody really wants to think about the Sacred Viscera).
I think, anyway. This is one of those issues where it's not clear how far there actually are multiple meanings and how much of that is actually just the result of squeamish critics not wanting to talk about poo -- somewhat analogous is the degree to which people talk about "the cult of male friendship" and it's hard to tell how much of that is reasonably accurate cultural studies and how much is just an exaggeration on the part of homophobic old-school critics. I hate running into those sorts of questions.
I still don't think Queen Isabel is talking about assbabies.
It may also be worth noting that in the Measure for Measure passage referenced above Pauline Kiernan, in the less scholarly Filthy Shakespeare, takes "bowels" as a pun on "balls," which is not very convincing either.
Also, I am pretty sure this is the grossest entry I've ever made. Possibly I should put it behind an lj-cut.