published_or_final_version / abstract / History / Master / Master of Philosophy

Sodomy and buggery are two elements of the wide historical and literary problematic of the Gay Past. During the French Renaissance, many images were closely related to unnatural vices: hermaphroditism, representation of the foreigner, effeminacy, and so on. In order to avoid anachronical statements, our study will be preceded by an historical and methodological essay that will bring us to a literary concept, l'imagologie. / In many ways, religious reforms in the last decades of the Sixteenth Century added to the complexity of the image of the sodomite. We know that the Holy Bible and religious writings put a stigma on such practices. But the hermaphrodite, the mignon, and some motifs from Antiquity were also known or discovered, transformed or travestied. / Finally, the image of the sodomite built up in French Renaissance literature is neither similar to today's Gay person, nor to an oversimplified figure of a medieval sinner. Its organization and meaning will depend mostly on the type of work in which it appears. Moreover, Italian and North-African epistemologies, and polemics using effeminacy or mollities set-ups add to the complexity of the discursive structure.

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