FROM PAIN TO DELIGHT IN THE LEGEND ABOUT ST. ELIZABETH (COMPLEMENTARITY AND CONTRAST)

Abstract

In addition to the motif of sexual abstinence and virginity, the dominant motif in Latin medieval legends is self-torture as an expression of an escape from the world and the suppression of corporeality. The narrator metatextually combines biblical quotations, or allusions with events from the saint’s life. In the description of their actions, a complementary updating addition to the biblical model of behavior is created. In the legend of St. Elizabeth, the saint consciously sets herself apart from the commonly expected attitudes with her reactions: she finds pleasure in humiliation and whipping, because from a moral point of view she considers the “punishments” to be deserved and likening her to Christ. Self-torture as a theme achieves here the depiction of sexual pleasure. The causes and objectives of self-torture have several interpretative variations that are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Hagiographic self-torture for religious reasons may thus appear as a phenomenon of sexual preferences. The author of the legend does not intentionally express the erotic and sexual preferences of the main character Elizabeth as a passive sufferer of pain, nor the character of master Conrad as an active executioner of punishments. Relevant events are described in the language of that time, which did not contain the means to name the sexual practices known in the culture of today. However, the author offers suggestions into the text, on the basis of which the presence of sexuality based on inversion, in which pain is transformed into pleasure, can be implied.