Full Description
A scandal in its time and a revelation today, this fearless satire blends courtly decadence with political rebellion in an imagined world of unchecked power.
A scandalous and subversive satire, Island of Hermaphrodites skewers the decadence and corruption of early seventeenth-century French society with razor-sharp wit. Published anonymously in 1605, this daring Menippean satire created an uproar for its irreverent portrayal of the French court, critique of absolute monarchy, and radical questioning of gender and power. A blend of political critique and biting humor, the novel follows an imagined land of aristocratic excess, where opulent feasts, elaborate fashion, and absurd rituals mask the deeper instability of a society built on privilege and deception.
Republished throughout the eighteenth century and connected to the intellectual ferment leading up to the French Revolution, Island of Hermaphrodites remains a strikingly modern indictment of unchecked power and economic exploitation. In its first full English translation, Kathleen P. Long offers new audiences a satirical romp through a world of absurdist power—one that feels politically salient today.
Contents
Acknowledgments
List of Illustrations
Introduction
—Historical Context
—The Work: Assumed Author, Characters
—Scholarly and Critical Approaches
—The World of the Court
—The Setting
—Clothing and Gender in the French Court
—The Laws
—The Banquet: Galenic Dietetics and Court Life
Political Treatises
Reception
Establishing the Text
Approaches to Translation
Text
—The Island of Hermaphrodites, Newly Discovered
—Summary of the Laws, Statutes, Customs, and Decrees of the Hermaphrodites
—The Banquet
—Against Hermaphrodites
—On the Sovereign Good of Man
—That the Soul of Man Should be Concerned with Temporal Things
—Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
