Mulher e misoginia na visão da literatura patrística e do seu legado medieval: representações temáticas

Abstract

The representation of women in Western medieval thought and literature is a field of inquiry that, when examining their historical and cultural formations, consists of a general androcentric disposition synonymous with a misogynistic view of the feminine reality. From the immense number of medieval misogynistic texts, these are fundamental references: the anti-matrimonial Liber de nuptiis (Book on Marriage), by Theophrastus (c. 372-288) and Adversus Jovinianum (Against Jovinian), by St. Jerome (c. 342-420); the no less virulent pro-celibatarian work of Walter Map (1140-c. 1209), The Letter of Valerius to Ruffinus, against Marriage (c. 1880) and the saddest of the books of wisdom of the medieval bible, the Ecclesiastic. However, if such works and authors are a distinct reference to misogynistic medieval thought and literature, one should consider that their tradition is found in earlier texts and authors, namely, the old Jewish law; Hesiod (c. 750 BC); Ovid (43 BC-18 AD); Juvenal (early 2nd century); the ancient studies of a derogatory physiology of the feminine of Aristotle (384-322 BC) and Galen (131- 201). In view of these presuppositions, this work aims at a critical-analytical view of the formation of the set of ideas of the medieval misogyny, from its roots in classical antiquity through Judeo-Christian tradition, patristic literature and its medieval legacy, to the formation not only of one type of satirical literature of the feminine written in medieval Latin but also of significant vernacular writings of antiwoman posture of the late Middle Ages.