PFSCL XLVIII, 95 (2021) DOI 10.2357/ PFSCL-2021-0020 Women Fighters and Gender Norms in Tragicomedy (1625-1650) P ERRY G ETHNER O KLAHOMA S TATE U NIVERSITY Fighting has traditionally been viewed as the quintessential masculine pursuit, but in both real life and literature there have sometimes been women who participated in wars and/ or fought duels. The presence of a handful of distinguished female warriors in epic poems from ancient Greece and Rome served as encouragement to many authors of chivalry-inspired texts, novels as well as epics, in the 16 th and 17 th centuries. By the late 17 th century, however, the woman fighter had fallen out of fashion, largely because of the devaluing of aristocratic heroism and the increasing anxiety on the part of the political establishment over the role of powerful women. In drama, the one period where women fighters became so widespread as to qualify as a convention was the second quarter of the 17 th century; in that genre they had not featured prominently before and would become relatively rare afterward. 1 That the plots of the tragicomedies were derived from works of fiction should not suggest that the playwrights viewed women warriors as unrealistic; after all, the tragedies featuring such characters were based on sources deemed more respectable, namely, mythology and history. Curiously, the playwrights showed no interest in the classical myth of the Amazons. While the term “amazone” is often used loosely to designate any capable female fighter, I have not found any French dramatic work featuring the Amazon warrior society before 1699. 2 There are some 1 On the decline in the acceptance of female heroism over the course of the 17 th century, see Marlies Mueller, “The Taming of the Amazon: the Changing Image of the Woman Warrior in Ancien Régime Fiction.” Papers on French Seventeenth Century Literature 42 (1995): 199-232. On the partial rehabilitation of women fighters in drama at the turn of the 18 th century, see my article, “Les héroïnes guerrières au théâtre vers 1700 - dramaturges masculins et féminins” (forthcoming). 2 The Amazons have attracted much attention from modern scholars, who tend to view them as positive examples of female empowerment. See, for example, Simon Perry Gethner PFSCL XLVIII, 95 (2021) DOI 10.2357/ PFSCL-2021-0020 278 two dozen relevant plays from this period, but because the corpus is so large and diverse, I will limit myself to the tragicomedies, which have received less scholarly attention than the tragedies. The situations for the female warriors in these plays are far from uniform: some hide their identity whereas others flaunt it; some adopt male attire all the time whereas others cross dress only in combat situations. A key difference is between female characters who see martial ability as essential to their sense of identity and those who view it as merely incidental. In the majority of cases the woman who takes up arms does so competently; indeed, she is often victorious over male foes. It is curious that we never learn where, or even whether, the female characters have acquired proficiency in swordsmanship; while some have clearly had training, others seem to think that the skill will come to them naturally. Since tragicomedies tend to feature wildly implausible situations, this is the genre where we find nonprofessional women fighters; with one exception, all their professional counterparts figure in tragedies. This is likewise the genre where we find incapable women taking up arms, either out of rash impulse or out of a desire to rescue another person. Heroines who enter a combat in an emergency situation despite a lack of training usually do so in order to defend the beloved, and since the men tend to be trained in arms and would not ordinarily need rescuing, the emergency is typically a judicial combat. Given that most male warriors would be reluctant to fight a woman, the latter appears in male attire and is not recognized until the fight has ended. The woman always survives, but often this is due not to her valor but to fortunate circumstances, such as the following: the combat is stopped right as it is about to begin; a more able fighter is substituted for the inexperienced woman; the opponent deliberately does the minimum to defend himself or even refuses to defend himself; the opponent quickly disarms the woman but does not wish to harm her. In Pichou’s L’Infidèle confidente (1629) 3 Lorise enters a judicial combat to assist her ex-fiancé, who is pitted against two enemy warriors. She hopes Shepherd, Amazons and Warrior Women: Varieties of Feminism in Seventeenth- Century Drama (New York: St. Martins, 1981); Abby Wettan Kleinbaum, The War Against the Amazons (New York: New Press, 1983). See also my edition of Anne- Marie Du Boccage’s tragedy Les Amazones in the anthology Femmes dramaturges en France (1650-1750), Pièces choisies, vol. 2 (Tübingen: Gunter Narr, 2002). 3 The dates listed are those of publication. The dates of first performance are mostly unknown, though in most cases they would probably have been no more than one or two years earlier than the date of publication. However, in some cases (especially with the early plays of Rotrou) the premiere could have occurred as Women Fighters and Gender Norms in Tragicomedy (1625-1650) PFSCL XLVIII, 95 (2021) DOI 10.2357/ PFSCL-2021-0020 279 that this proof of her devotion will win back the man who has jilted her. Luckily for all parties, the king, who opposes judicial duels and has authorized this one only with reservations, stops it before the fighting can begin, and the revelation of Lorise’s identity quickly settles the dispute between the men. Since there is no indication that she has had any training with weapons, it is likely that she would have been injured or killed had the combat taken place. In Pierre Du Ryer’s Lisandre et Caliste (1632), Caliste volunteers to fight a judicial duel in order to defend the honor of her beloved Lisandre, despite her lack of ability, though she admits that this is likely to be a suicide mission. Fortunately, when she arrives at court there are two other volunteers willing to fight for Lisandre. The one who is chosen by lot turns out to be her rival Hippolyte, who is extremely capable and who fights her opponent to a draw; Caliste is thus spared an inevitable humiliation. In Balthasar Baro’s Cariste (1651), a princess without combat skills feels strong remorse when she learns that, due to her false accusation, her rival has been condemned to death on a charge of sorcery. As a result, when a judicial duel is ordered, she disguises herself and fights on her rival’s behalf, although, as she herself admits, she is terrified and can hope for nothing more than to die proclaiming the rival’s innocence. Fortunately, she is saved through a stratagem devised by the hero: he persuades the champion chosen by the king to defend the sorcery charge to let him fight in his place; then, unafraid of the loss to his reputation as a warrior, he deliberately lets his inept opponent disarm him and win. In other cases, however, we find the more predictable outcome: the untrained and inept female fights against a competent opponent and loses. In Georges de Scudéry’s Le Prince déguisé (1636) the woman again enters a judicial combat in order to defend her beloved, and again both fighters are in disguise with neither knowing the identity of the other. Paradoxically, her opponent is the hero, and he is fighting to defend her. This confusing situation occurs because of a law that condemns to death the more guilty party in an unsanctioned love relationship, and since both the hero, Cléarque, and the heroine, Argénie, claim to be the more guilty, both are required to produce a champion to fight on their behalf. Both manage to escape from prison and present themselves on the appointed day, not knowing of the other’s plans. Argénie admits that her action is foolhardy since she has no combat training, stating in an aside: “Pardonne cher Amant à mon peu de vaillance, / Si cette faible main ne te sauve en ce jour, / Je puis manquer de force, et non jamais d’amour” (v. 1426-28). Fortunately, much as six years earlier, and it is possible that Baro’s play, which was published posthumously, was not performed. Perry Gethner PFSCL XLVIII, 95 (2021) DOI 10.2357/ PFSCL-2021-0020 280 the fight is stopped before any harm can ensue: Cléarque speedily disarms his feeble opponent. However, since Scudéry is determined to display his heroine’s greatness of soul, he compensates for Argénie’s lack of fighting skill by letting her distinguish herself in verbal duels where each lover offers to die in place of the other. In Du Rocher’s L’Indienne amoureuse (1636) Rozemonde, who has been duped into participating in a scheme that leads to the suicide of her cousin’s fiancé (which later turns out not to be fatal) and a death sentence pronounced on the innocent cousin, volunteers to join in a judicial duel in order to defend the cousin. A combination of guilt and determination factor into this decision, despite her lack of training: “Encore que mon sexe ait beaucoup de faiblesse, / La force me manquant j’aurai la hardiesse” (p. 108- 09). Significantly, her role as fighter was invented by Du Rocher; it is not found in his source (Ariosto’s Orlando furioso). It is fortunate for Rozemonde that her competent male opponent aims his first blow at her head; her helmet is struck off, and once her true identity is revealed, the organizers stop the duel. Her courage wins her the sudden affection of the hero’s brother, allowing the play to end with a double wedding. Another untrained fighter, Olympe in André Mareschal’s La Sœur valeureuse (1634), fights a regular, non-judicial, duel in order to protect not the life, but rather the reputation of her beloved. She has fallen in love with Lucidor, but is led to believe that he is unfaithful. Lucidor’s enemy Dorame, who wants Olympe for himself, issues a challenge to Lucidor. However, the summons ends up in the wrong hands, and Olympe, believing that Lucidor has refused the challenge out of cowardice, goes to the assigned spot to fight in his place. Given her total lack of training, she knows that this errand is suicidal, but she hopes to avenge herself on both of the men through her death. Fortunately, the title character, an able female warrior whose arms Olympe stole while she was asleep, arrives just as Olympe falls to the ground, wounded; she attacks Dorame and speedily defeats him. I have found only one case of an untrained and inept woman who enters a fight from unworthy motives. Cloriande in Mareschal’s La Généreuse Allemande (1631) takes up arms during a battle, but not to help her besieged city; she hopes to profit from the confusion to murder her rival Camille, even though the latter has already acquired a reputation as a valiant warrior. Cloriande’s lack of training becomes evident at once: she fires a pistol at Camille and misses, then she draws her sword and attacks Camille, who quickly overpowers her. She later repents and is allowed to marry the hero’s best friend. However, not all incidental fighters are inept; many of them acquit themselves with distinction. In these cases the heroine has typically run Women Fighters and Gender Norms in Tragicomedy (1625-1650) PFSCL XLVIII, 95 (2021) DOI 10.2357/ PFSCL-2021-0020 281 away from home in male attire, either because her parents oppose her choice of husband or because her lover has jilted her. She is not a professional warrior, but when she has to draw her sword, she knows how to use it. The playwright who most favors this scenario is Jean de Rotrou, who shows cross-dressed women fighting, on stage, in four of his tragicomedies. Céliane (1637) is a special case because the woman, in a state of rage, provokes a duel with her lover, whom she wrongly suspects of infidelity; he quickly prevails, which leads to a reconciliation. We get the impression that she is a competent fighter, even though her lover is stronger. In the other three plays the woman fights in order to rescue a person in distress, and in two of those cases the people in need of help are men. In Amélie (1638) Cloris, traveling in male attire, draws her sword against Eraste, not deterred by the fact that he is accompanied by two servants; she does so in order to rescue the title character, whom he is attempting to abduct. Although Cloris is prepared to fight and seems capable, she does not have to go through with the duel. That is because, as the two adversaries move toward each other, they recognize each other and both faint, which turns the scene almost comic. It turns out that they are lovers who had earlier run away together but were separated by a shipwreck, with each believing the other to be dead. They are overjoyed to be reunited, and Cloris’s skill with the sword is never alluded to again. In Les Deux Pucelles (1639) Léocadie, who is pursuing the man who signed a promise of marriage but jilted her, finds him being attacked by a trio of robbers; she takes his side in the fray and puts the robbers to flight. Her faithless fiancé, Antoine, thanks her for her aid but fails to recognize her, then faints from his wounds, though he ultimately survives. In this play, unlike Amélie, we get to see the woman fight, and she performs very well. Indeed, a spectator declares: “Quel lion fut jamais [au] combat plus ardent? ” (v. 1307). Again, no mention is made of her combat ability after the single scene where she gets to display it. The title character in La Belle Alphrède (1639) is even more impressive, for she fights on two occasions: first, joined by her male confidant, she successfully assists her faithless fiancé Rodolphe, who is being attacked by a group of four pirates; later, joined by her newfound brother, she successfully rescues an unknown man from three assailants, after which they liberate the man’s daughters, who have been abducted. In this play the outcome of the fights is bloody: in the first episode one of the pirates gets killed and the others flee, while in the later scene all three assailants die; none of the good characters appears to even get injured. Alphrède is clearly a capable and brave swordswoman, but apart from these two episodes, her role is restricted to her status as a jilted lover who pursues the man who has seduced her. Perry Gethner PFSCL XLVIII, 95 (2021) DOI 10.2357/ PFSCL-2021-0020 282 In a small number of cases the heroine is a noblewoman who has received military training but is not expected to go to war; she only engages in fighting once she voluntarily leaves home to seek adventure. The title character of Mareschal’s La Sœur valeureuse leaves her native Persia, adopts male attire and travels around as a knight errant, eager to share the experiences of her twin brother, for whom she feels an incestuous love - a passion that is cured during the course of the play. But her career choice is a success: she demonstrates spectacular valor, easily prevailing in every duel she fights, including one against her brother and two against Dorame, her brother’s rival for whom she develops a strong affection that turns to love. When she finds herself in a war situation, she unhesitatingly volunteers to lead the troops and wins a speedy victory. Oronte is so masculine in her demeanor and her speech that no one she meets guesses her real sex until her brother reveals it. However, when her father lets her marry the man whom she has come to love, that automatically puts an end to her career as a knight errant. Mareschal also features a talented female fighter in his two-part tragicomedy, La Généreuse Allemande. Here the heroine, the daughter of a highranking nobleman, is known from the start for her ability as a swordswoman but apparently has not participated in battles. However, when her fiancé fails to return to her and she decides to track him down, traveling in male attire, she finds him pursued by a group of citizens after he has killed a rival in a duel - a scuffle in which both men’s retainers were participants. Camille, seeing her beloved outnumbered, bravely enters the fight and twice manages to repel the mob. When she fails to dislodge them, she reveals that she is a woman, whereupon the citizens are struck with admiration and agree to a compromise solution that she proposes. Later, after her efforts to get her beloved released from prison have failed, she secretly works to bring in an army from elsewhere to storm the city, organizes the attack preparations, helps to lead the fighting, and in the wake of the victory participates in the final negotiations that lead to a happy ending for all the principal characters. The most confusing case of female fighters occurs in Scudéry’s Le Vassal généreux (1636). Rosélie, a noble heiress betrothed to a distinguished general, is pursued by the wicked young king. In order to escape from his clutches, she and her friend Artésie, who is married to the hero’s squire, don male attire and go off to rejoin their men. However, when the men fail to recognize them, the women choose not to reveal their identities, and Artésie decides, as a jest, to challenge them to a double duel on a flimsy pretext; the men, putting their knightly pride over common sense, agree at once. The four start fighting in earnest, and we get the impression that the disguised Women Fighters and Gender Norms in Tragicomedy (1625-1650) PFSCL XLVIII, 95 (2021) DOI 10.2357/ PFSCL-2021-0020 283 women acquit themselves ably. It is unclear how long the women would have allowed this senseless contest to go on, but in any case they are soon interrupted by the arrival of a stranger. It is the king, who has been deposed in a popular uprising and is now fleeing for his life; his erstwhile enemies take pity on him, and they are all reconciled. Scudéry fails to provide any motivation for this absurd episode, which is not crucial to the plot, but we can presume that the two women, feeling empowered by their male clothing, are eager to prove that they are capable of acting just like real knights. The fact that Scudéry turned what could have been a scene of female empowerment into a farcical escapade suggests that he did not take women fighters seriously and that he was willing to satisfy his audience’s taste for surprise and spectacle at the expense of aesthetic coherence. The sole example in tragicomedy of a professional female warrior is Bradamante in Gautier de La Calprenède’s play of the same name (1637). 4 Like her professional counterparts in tragedy, she sees her fighting prowess as essential to her sense of self-worth and she wins great renown without hiding her identity. However, despite her status as a female knight errant recognized as the equal of her male peers, she functions primarily as centerpiece in a love triangle. When her father objects to her betrothal to another knight, Roger, and tries to force her to marry the man of his choice, she persuades the king, Charlemagne, to accord her hand only to the man capable of vanquishing her in single combat. And she knows that the only male knight at the French court with that level of prowess is her beloved Roger. Given Bradamante’s reputation, no one dares to accept her challenge. The one prince who finally does, Léon, son of the Emperor of Constantinople, is so awed by her and also so afraid that he might injure the woman he loves that he recruits another knight, more powerful than himself, to fight her in his stead. Due to an odd combination of circumstances, that other knight is Roger in disguise. The combat takes place, and this is the only dramatic version of the story where it happens on stage. The disguised Roger prevails, and though Bradamante does not accept defeat, the king stops the fighting and declares the male knight the winner. Bradamante thus preserves her reputation as an outstanding warrior, but she gets to show it only in a single scene. Even worse, though Bradamante seems to take the 4 The play appeared anonymously, but most scholars accept the attribution to La Calprenède. See H. C. Lancaster, “La Calprenède Dramatist.” Modern Philology 18.3 (1920): 121-41. On the relation of this play to other plays on the same subject, see Alexandre Cioranescu, L’Arioste en France des origines à la fin du XVIII e siècle (Paris: Editions des Presses Modernes, 1939); Micheline Cuénin, “Bradamante: de l’épique au burlesque,” in Myth and its making in the French theatre: studies presented to W. D. Howarth, ed. E. Freeman (Cambridge UP, 1988), p. 30-43. Perry Gethner PFSCL XLVIII, 95 (2021) DOI 10.2357/ PFSCL-2021-0020 284 equality of men and women for granted, she finds herself a victim of the patriarchal system: her overbearing father Aymon, himself a distinguished knight, rejects her claim to choose her own husband and, eager to advance his own status, insists that his daughter accept Léon, since that marriage would make her an empress. He relents only when ambassadors from the Bulgarians, whom Roger valiantly defended on the battlefield, announce that they have chosen him as their new king. Another significant feature of this and other plays devoted to Bradamante is that her best friend, Marfise, is also a highly respected female warrior. Again, little is said of Marfise’s prowess until she challenges Léon in order to defend the right of her brother, Roger, to marry her friend. That combat ultimately does not take place, since Roger returns and reveals his identity just in time to allow for a happy ending. La Calprenède could have done more to emphasize Marfise’s status as a female warrior, but for much of the play she functions mainly as a confidante. Still, it is significant that, like Bradamante, she appears to maintain female dress when not fighting and establishes a reputation for valor that all the men acknowledge. One is entitled to wonder how the playwrights who displayed female fighters thought of them, especially since so many of those fighters engage in combat only on rare occasions and some of them do so unsuccessfully. It is likely that some dramatists viewed them mainly as a concession to baroque sensationalism, especially since they were writing during the brief period when violence, including duels, could be shown on stage. 5 But even the cases where women fail to equal their male counterparts are not necessarily to be interpreted as disparagement: the fact that untrained young women display the courage to venture into life-threatening situations and are determined to fight for what they see as the right, entitles them to respect. Moreover, the fact that none of the women fighters in tragicomedy gets killed indicates that audiences sympathized with these characters and wished to see them end happily. Nevertheless, the portrayal of these heroic women can have a troubling aspect that to the modern reader seems incompatible with a proto-feminist perspective. The frequent talk of blending stereotypical male and female traits is usually focused on the woman’s good looks. When male onlookers during combat scenes praise her combination of beauty and courage, this risks reducing her to an object of desire. In some cases the male adversary 5 This seems to be the position of Roger Guichemerre, who views the use of women fighters in judicial duels as merely adding an element of pathos to episodes characterized by suspense, surprise and (often) onstage violence; however, he recognizes that aristocratic women are capable of equaling the men in courage. See La Tragi-comédie (Paris: PUF, 1981), p. 105, 179. Women Fighters and Gender Norms in Tragicomedy (1625-1650) PFSCL XLVIII, 95 (2021) DOI 10.2357/ PFSCL-2021-0020 285 in a judicial duel, once he beholds the face of his female opponent, promptly falls in love with her, making comments such as this one: “je croirai plutôt que la nature assemble / Dedans un même corps Mars et l’Amour ensemble” (Lisandre et Caliste v. 1309-10). One enthusiastic admirer of a female warrior even declares that if heaven made more women like her there would be a total reversal of gender roles. Thus, valor and beauty would always be combined, and women could dominate both in love and politics, transforming war itself: “La Beauté serait mâle, et l’horreur des alarmes / Au milieu du carnage aurait même des charmes, / Ce ne serait plus qu’un, la grâce et la valeur” (La Généreuse Allemande, seconde journée, v. 950-52). One way to counteract that objectification is to allow the heroine to manifest her heroic spirit through speech. Statements manifesting spectacular courage were clearly intended to produce admiration. These could be addressed to the villains (“Traîtres, adressez-moi vos injustes efforts, / Ou ce fer se fait voie au travers de vos corps” [Amélie, v. 1311- 12]), or the person needing to be rescued (“Courage, beau guerrier, contre ce rude assaut / Vous avez en mon corps le bouclier qu’il vous faut” [Les Deux pucelles, v. 1303-04]). The other key explanation for the prominence of female fighters in this period is the increased interest in the femme forte as a multivalent model that could embrace military qualities, as well as moral or domestic virtues. 6 There was a remarkable plethora of texts, covering all the main literary genres as well as religious and moralistic treatises, that glorified women, and this phenomenon does indicate some degree of acceptance of antimisogynist, if not always proto-feminist, thinking. This is all the more remarkable in that the authors of these works were nearly all male. (There would be no women playwrights with works both professionally staged and published until around 1650. 7 ) That most of the playwrights must have admired the women fighters, whether or not they perform as well as the men, is evident from the insistence on their heroic character, as we have seen. To be sure, the subversive quality of the fighters is somewhat undercut by the conservative endings, which maintain or restore the women's powerlessness in the social and political spheres, and for the non-professionals matrimony will presumably put an end to their fighting careers. However, 6 See Ian Maclean, Woman Triumphant: Feminism in French Literature 1610-1652 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977). In his chapter on drama, in which he covers a wide variety of heroic behaviors with emphasis on moral virtues, only five of the plays mentioned feature female warriors. 7 On the use of women fighters in texts written by women, see, for example, Charlotte Trinquet du Lys, “Women-Soldiers’ Tales during Louis XIV’s War Conflicts.” Marvels & Tales 33.1 (Spring 2019): 140-56. Perry Gethner PFSCL XLVIII, 95 (2021) DOI 10.2357/ PFSCL-2021-0020 286 the endings do not erase the memory of the exciting combat scenes, which allow for serious questioning of gender distinctions and force audiences to reflect on the possibility of a world where heroic women can be empowered and perform with distinction, both on and off the battlefield 8 . Plays studied Baro, Baltasar. Cariste, ou les charmes de la beauté. Théâtre complet. Series directed by Bénédicte Louvat. Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2015. Vol. 1. Du Rocher. L’Indienne amoureuse, ou l’Heureux naufrage. Paris: Jean Corrozet, 1636. Du Ryer, Pierre. Lisandre et Caliste. Théâtre complet. Series directed by Hélène Baby. Paris: Classiques Garnier. Vol. 2, 2020. [La Calprenède, Gautier de]. La Bradamante. Paris: Antoine de Sommaville, 1637. Mareschal, André. La Généreuse Allemande; La Sœur valeureuse. Tragi-comédies. Ed. Hélène Baby. Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2010-2013. 2 vols. Pichou, L’Infidèle confidente. Ed. Jean-Pierre Leroy. Geneva: Droz, 1991. Rotrou, Jean de. Amélie; La Belle Alphrède; Céliane; Les Deux pucelles. Théâtre complet. Series directed by Georges Forestier. Paris: Société des Textes Français Modernes: 1999-2019. 13 vols. Scudéry, Georges de. Le Prince déguisé. Ed. Barbara Matulka. New York: Institute of French Studies, Columbia University, 1929. _____. Le Vassal généreux. Paris: Augustin Courbé, 1636. 8 One can make an even stronger case for the heroic status of female fighters who are protagonists in tragedies. The parity with male heroism is more explicit, especially since these are all professional fighters, and in most cases they die at the end in a blaze of glory. In addition, the women fighters are primarily concerned with their duty to their country, sometimes rejecting love altogether. For a study of these plays, see Derval Conroy, “Mapping Gender Transgressions? Representations of the Warrior Woman in Seventeenth-Century Tragedy (1642- 1660).” La Femme au XVII e siècle. Tübingen: Gunter Narr [Biblio 17, 138], 2002, 243-54.