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.Our disgust and revulsion at the little boy s murder SACRED FILTH 83is heightened by our horror at his being thrown into the privy.Thedesecration with filth heightens our aversion and signals our revulsion atthe abject.75Excremental images are embedded throughout the Prioress s Tale.Weare told at the start of the tale that the Jewerye (VII.489)76 is a street open at eyther ende (VII.494), just as the mouth and anus are sim-ply the ends of one long tube.77 Like the Host in host desecration accu-sation tales, the attacked boy is thrown into a privy.78 His companionteaches him prively (VII.544) and the Jews catch him in a priveeplace (VII.568).79 Standard anti-Semitic accusations are embedded inthe tale.Aligned with usury (VII.490), the Jews are stereotyped as per-verse multipliers of money like their analogue gongfermors.80 Blood ismentioned twice in the tale the children scholars ycomen of Cristenblood (VII.497) and The blood out crieth on youre cursed dede (VII.578) blood that in host desecration accusation tales spurts out ofthe attacked Host.The boy s throat is cut, just as in host desecration accu-sation tales the Host is usually boiled, pierced, or stabbed.81 Perceived ofas the locus for putrefaction, the body with its digestive decay seems adisturbing locus for the sacred f lesh of Christ.Lester Little argues thatcharges against Jews of host desecration reflect the unease Christians feltconcerning the doctrine of transubstantiation, of f icial only since 1215.There was never a period during which the doctrine was universallyaccepted; the feast of Corpus Christ, established in 1264, was an attemptto support belief s in transubstantiation.By accusing Jews of attackingthe consecrated Host, Christians projected onto Jews their own doubtsabout the nature of this doctrine.82 Jews serve to embody the fear of whathappens to the Eucharist once it is ingested.Anxiety at the thought ofdigesting the Eucharist leaks out of these textual cesspits.Typological or figural readings of the Bible, wherein Old Testamentpassages are read as prefiguring those in the New Testament, allow forthe the fantasy of supersession ;83 in other words, contemporary Jewsin the late Middle Ages are easily erased as being coeval and only readas originary and lesser than Christians.84 Christian typological read-ings allowed living Jews to be erased from the present and placed inan othered past.85 The human body, embodied as Jewish, becomesthe body to be rejected.86 Giorgio Agamben asserts that our ability todistinguish ourselves from animals (and our animal selves) through the anthropological machine of the moderns ultimately leads, in its mostperversely logical outcome, to the separation of Jews f rom mankind in f ascist ideology: [I]he inhuman [is] produced by animalizing thehuman. 87 The Inferno illustrates how anti-Semitic discourse struggledwith this proximity of the Jew to the Christian.Sylvia Tomasch has 84 EXCREMENT IN THE LATE MIDDLE AGESpointed out the anti-Semitism inherent in Dante s schema wherein hell isexcremental.Jews are literally absent from the Giudecca (Inf.XXXIV.117),which means Jewish ghetto in medieval Italian, of the Inferno, but aremade metonymically present through the incomplete and monstrousbody of the devil. 88 Satan s perverse body stands in contrast to the Bodyof Christ or the Church.89 Tomasch goes on:Defecation, the process antithetical to ingestion, was often prominentlyfeatured in depictions of archdemons; it was also used to characterizemedieval Jews, who were thought to be closely linked to impurity and filth.In Dante s hell, however, is no such, even temporary, satisfaction.[T]hebodily functions of Dante s demon show only an incomplete imitation ofthe digestive process.As countless texts and illustrations inform us, allwho are sinful enter hellmouth but none comes out again except Dante.Ingested then excreted, a wandering exile seeking his true progenitor, healone returns to tell his tale.90Once Dante leaves hell he also tries to leave the Jewish past of Christianity [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.Our disgust and revulsion at the little boy s murder SACRED FILTH 83is heightened by our horror at his being thrown into the privy.Thedesecration with filth heightens our aversion and signals our revulsion atthe abject.75Excremental images are embedded throughout the Prioress s Tale.Weare told at the start of the tale that the Jewerye (VII.489)76 is a street open at eyther ende (VII.494), just as the mouth and anus are sim-ply the ends of one long tube.77 Like the Host in host desecration accu-sation tales, the attacked boy is thrown into a privy.78 His companionteaches him prively (VII.544) and the Jews catch him in a priveeplace (VII.568).79 Standard anti-Semitic accusations are embedded inthe tale.Aligned with usury (VII.490), the Jews are stereotyped as per-verse multipliers of money like their analogue gongfermors.80 Blood ismentioned twice in the tale the children scholars ycomen of Cristenblood (VII.497) and The blood out crieth on youre cursed dede (VII.578) blood that in host desecration accusation tales spurts out ofthe attacked Host.The boy s throat is cut, just as in host desecration accu-sation tales the Host is usually boiled, pierced, or stabbed.81 Perceived ofas the locus for putrefaction, the body with its digestive decay seems adisturbing locus for the sacred f lesh of Christ.Lester Little argues thatcharges against Jews of host desecration reflect the unease Christians feltconcerning the doctrine of transubstantiation, of f icial only since 1215.There was never a period during which the doctrine was universallyaccepted; the feast of Corpus Christ, established in 1264, was an attemptto support belief s in transubstantiation.By accusing Jews of attackingthe consecrated Host, Christians projected onto Jews their own doubtsabout the nature of this doctrine.82 Jews serve to embody the fear of whathappens to the Eucharist once it is ingested.Anxiety at the thought ofdigesting the Eucharist leaks out of these textual cesspits.Typological or figural readings of the Bible, wherein Old Testamentpassages are read as prefiguring those in the New Testament, allow forthe the fantasy of supersession ;83 in other words, contemporary Jewsin the late Middle Ages are easily erased as being coeval and only readas originary and lesser than Christians.84 Christian typological read-ings allowed living Jews to be erased from the present and placed inan othered past.85 The human body, embodied as Jewish, becomesthe body to be rejected.86 Giorgio Agamben asserts that our ability todistinguish ourselves from animals (and our animal selves) through the anthropological machine of the moderns ultimately leads, in its mostperversely logical outcome, to the separation of Jews f rom mankind in f ascist ideology: [I]he inhuman [is] produced by animalizing thehuman. 87 The Inferno illustrates how anti-Semitic discourse struggledwith this proximity of the Jew to the Christian.Sylvia Tomasch has 84 EXCREMENT IN THE LATE MIDDLE AGESpointed out the anti-Semitism inherent in Dante s schema wherein hell isexcremental.Jews are literally absent from the Giudecca (Inf.XXXIV.117),which means Jewish ghetto in medieval Italian, of the Inferno, but aremade metonymically present through the incomplete and monstrousbody of the devil. 88 Satan s perverse body stands in contrast to the Bodyof Christ or the Church.89 Tomasch goes on:Defecation, the process antithetical to ingestion, was often prominentlyfeatured in depictions of archdemons; it was also used to characterizemedieval Jews, who were thought to be closely linked to impurity and filth.In Dante s hell, however, is no such, even temporary, satisfaction.[T]hebodily functions of Dante s demon show only an incomplete imitation ofthe digestive process.As countless texts and illustrations inform us, allwho are sinful enter hellmouth but none comes out again except Dante.Ingested then excreted, a wandering exile seeking his true progenitor, healone returns to tell his tale.90Once Dante leaves hell he also tries to leave the Jewish past of Christianity [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]