ABSTRACT

In 1924, W. W. Greg referred to the twelve illuminations of London, British Library, MS Cotton Nero A.x. as “queer pictures.” Greg’s provocative description of these images serves as the foundation for a reconsideration of the manuscript’s much maligned visual program. By first attending to the affectively negative and highly aestheticized terms which have come to be associated with the images, such as “crude” and “amateur,” this article argues for the reconsideration of the implications of such language. In doing so, it provides a means of understanding how such language reinforces notions of aesthetic and sexual normativity. It likewise explores the role of Cleanness — one of the four poems copied into MS Cotton Nero A.x. — in establishing an aesthetic dialectic which pervades the manuscript object itself. In juxtaposing the “fayre formez” of God’s court and the “dedez vnfayre” ascribed to sexual deviancy, the poet of Cleanness fashions a dialectic which highlights the co-constitutive interplay of cleanness and filth in the medieval religious imagination. This article ultimately contends that the “crudity” of the illuminations represents a complex understanding and deliberate extension of the poet’s textual dialectic which is predicated on the careful suggestion of sin and explicit depiction of God’s judgment.

摘要

1924 年，WW Greg 将伦敦、大英图书馆、MS Cotton Nero Ax 的十二个照明称为“酷儿图片”。格雷格对这些图像的挑衅性描述为重新考虑手稿中饱受诟病的视觉程序奠定了基础。通过首先关注与图像相关的情感消极和高度审美化的术语，例如“粗俗”和“业余”，本文主张重新考虑这种语言的含义。通过这样做，它提供了一种理解这种语言如何强化审美和性规范概念的方法。它同样探讨了清洁的作用— 复制到 MS Cotton Nero Ax 中的四首诗之一 — 建立一种贯穿手稿对象本身的美学辩证法。通过将上帝宫廷的“fayre formez”和归因于性变态的“dedez vnfayre”并置，清洁诗人塑造了一种辩证法，突出了中世纪宗教想象中清洁与污秽的共同构成相互作用。这篇文章最终认为，照明的“粗暴”代表了对诗人文本辩证法的复杂理解和故意延伸，这种辩证法建立在对罪的仔细暗示和对上帝审判的明确描绘之上。