Heterosexuality and its Discontents

Pygmalion’s Folly and the Author’s Craft in Jean de Meun’s Roman de la Rose

“…10 Sylvia Huot has taken this interpretation a step further by insisting on the elements of writing in both the textual and iconographical depictions of Pygmalion in Jean's Rose, concluding that, contrary to Guillaume's Narcissus, ''Pygmalion is Jean's corrected image of the lyric poet as a writer.'' 11 Our reading is an attempt to combine these two critical perspectives (one considering Pygmalion's actions as madness with either positive consequences for, or a negative image of, humankind's fate; the other recuperating Pygmalion as author) by claiming that Pygmalion can be considered an author-figure because of his madness. To this effect, we propose an interpretation of the Pygmalion episode which stresses the use of folly on a textual and linguistic level and argues how it functions as a mimesis of a more universal 'godlike' authorship: just as the Lover impregnates the Rose because he is a fol'amant and Pygmalion in his madness fertilizes his Galatea, so Jean de Meun, writing Pygmalion's folly, stages himself as a demiurgic linguistic fertilizer.…”