Abstract
The late medieval French Farce nouvelle des cinq sens de l’homme stages Man served by his deconstructed sense organs. The harmonious integration of part and whole is disrupted by the filthy Cul (Asshole) who, stymied in his effort to infiltrate the ranks of the five senses, gives the Man indigestion before locking himself in the lavatory. The disintegration of the body, and its reconfiguration according to a new sensory hierarchy, are accomplished through a series of disabling gestures. In this text that repeatedly undermines the legitimacy of the traditional hierarchy of the senses, the Asshole assumes a position of prime importance, the ‘lower’ senses take on the intimate tasks of washing and scratching him whenever he pleases, and sight and hearing are, by the end of the farce, effectively marginalized. Only by stigmatizing Man's five senses can the revolting Cul reign supreme.
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Notes
This is a collection of 64 plays, all separately printed toward the middle of the sixteenth century, which were discovered in an attic in Berlin in the mid-nineteenth century. It is described in Petit de Julleville (1967, 4–6). The only modern edition of the farce appears in the so-called Viollet-le-Duc collection, edited by Anatole de Montaiglon, from which I cite the text. A facsimile (Le Recueil du British Museum) was produced in 1970.
My plot summary lacks the delicacy of that offered by Petit de Julleville, who provided the first published description in 1886: ‘Les Cinq sens (pourquoi les pieds au lieu du nez ?) méprisent le sixième personnage dont le nom, aujourd’hui banni de la bonne compagnie, figure encore chez nos grands écrivains du XVIIe siècle (voy. Littré, Dictionnaire). Le compagnon se venge en refusant tout service. Il faut en venir à composition avec lui’ (Julleville, 1967, 121). Translations to English are mine here and throughout.
Woolgar notes, however, that this order ‘did vary if it suited the purpose of the discussion’ (Woolgar, 2006, 23, 23–28).
The Eyes occupy the head of the table, the Hands are positioned across the table from Man, and Hearing sits next to the Man. The Mouth is told to sit wherever it wants, and the Feet are thrown under the table.
Évrart de Conty, for instance, in his late-fourteenth-century translation and gloss on the Problemata Aristotelis, classifies the ‘vertu aprehensive’ (‘external and internal senses’) and the ‘vertu motive’ (‘movement’) as two distinct subsets of the ‘vertu animal’ (‘sensitive soul’) (Évrart de Conty, forthcoming, n.p.).
The Ears participate in the initial praise of their master (301, 302) and they advise the Man to go to the restroom (313). Otherwise their only lines are brief insults directed at the Cul (314, 316, 317).
Or are they just lifting the toilet seat? The French is ambiguous on this point.
‘This image of the [open] body acquired a considerable and substantial development in the popular, festive, and spectacle forms of the Middle Ages: in the feast of the fool, in charivari and carnival, in the popular side show of Corpus Christi, in the diableries of the mystery plays, the soties, and farces’ (Bakhtin, 1984, 27).
On the difference between a pet (noisy fart) and a vesse (silent fart), see Allen (2007, 25–26).
She later elaborates: ‘The didactic aim of Les cinq sens de l’homme is, ostensibly, to point out the integrity of the human form, point to the necessity of cooperation among the members of a team, and make a point of having people laugh in the process’ (King, 2010, 13).
‘À l’intérieur de l’ensemble du théâtre “non religieux,” il y a une ligne de séparation assez nette entre les pièces “joyeuses” à fonction comique et satirique, et des représentations qui visent à l’exemplarité, à l’édification … et à l’enseignement, sur des questions de morale générale ou pratique, ou des problèmes liés à l’actualité.’ [‘Within the broader category of “non-religious theatre,” there is a fairly distinct line of demarcation between comical and satirical “merry” plays and representations that aim for exemplarity, edification… and instruction, on matters of general or practical morality or on present-day problems’; Strubel, 2003, 97]
On the close relationship of the farce moralisée and the sottie, see Knight (1983, 79–90).
His discussion of blindness may also indirectly restate the question of disloyalty that the five senses’ early speeches introduced, for, as Wheatley notes, as late as the fifteenth century blinding was still employed as a punishment for the leaders of revolts (Wheatley, 2010, 31–42).
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Singer, J. Revolting anatomy in the Farce nouvelle des cinq sens de l’homme. Postmedieval 3, 436–449 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1057/pmed.2012.34
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/pmed.2012.34