Sexual Discourse in the Parisian Chanson: A Libidinous Aviary

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. TN 1571, there appeared from the Parisian presses of Jean Ruelle a I small book in the form of a recueil de poesie entitled La Description philosophale, de la nature & condition des oyseaux, & de l'inclination & proprifti d'iceux. The book was a pocket encyclopedia of birds, including for each entry a miniature engraving, prose information on habitat, mating rituals, nesting habits, physiology, edibility, and so forth, and two poems, the first descriptive and the second a poetic moral. Its melange of myth, facts gained through observation, dietary recommendations based on elemental science, poetry, and moralization of natural philosophy typifies the breadth of mid-century scientific inquiries. Of the sparrow, for example, we learn that it is one of the most lustful birds in the world owing to its great heat, and for this reason-here is the moral-it represents a lewd and carnal man who hides in his house, immersed in libidinous behavior. We are also warned that the sparrow's inclination to sing provokes "the desire of lust" in those who consume its flesh.In the most general sense, La Description philosophale is the product of a sixteenth-century vogue for cataloguing flora and fauna, especially the monstrous and exotic. Its text is so limited and its engravings so generic in their tiny one-by-one-inch format that the book's actual descriptive capabilities are reduced to almost nothing, however. Rather than listing birds in an encyclopedic style, La Description philosophale is finally much more concerned with the philosophical cataloguing of human morality through images of birds. The poetic morals in La Description philosophale that liken various species of birds to the denizens of French society convey each bird's natural attributes as human characteristics (see Table I). The songbirds, as a class, are used to comment on the vices and virtues surrounding sexual behav-