«Un homme à demy»: gender, esthétisme et reconnaissance dans “L’Isle des Hermaphrodites”

Abstract

Isle of was published in 1605 and is attributed to Thomas Artus. This work is presented as a satirical text which borrows from the rhetorical modes of utopian fiction in order to represent, in an ironic way, an anti-utopia, an imaginary island of America inhabited by hermaphrodites. These hermaphrodites create a kind of upside-down world based on a paroxysmal aestheticism and an utter exaltation of effeminacy. Carnival reversal would aim to praise a Christian morality and reject a code of behavior perceived as perverted. Nevertheless, the hybridization of utopian fiction, travel writing, and satire creates a rather ambiguous text which seems to escape from Christian morality. The Isle of Hermaphrodites puts forward the pleasure of wandering and imagination, through which the narrator-traveler opens to a foreign and enigmatic world. The autonomous voice of the protagonist makes the hermaphrodite universe the object of a fascination which is justified as a fascination for the values of beauty and knowledge. The aestheticism – seemingly condemned – manages to acquire an ethical and cognitive dimension resulting in the recognition of the Other. The traveler’s gaze, always immune to satirical ridicule, legitimizes an identity to which the status of subject would otherwise be refused; this gaze produces a non-masculine form as an identity form.