Cynic shamelessness in late sixteenth-century French texts.

This article examines the diverse responses elicited by ancient Cynicism's sexual shamelessness in a wide range of sixteenth-century French texts. The outrageous performance of the Cynics, including public sex and masturbation, was always designed to provoke questioning of civilized norms. Many texts express disgust at the antics of Diogenes and his followers. The facetious dialogues of Bouchet and Cholieres treat the topic of shamelessness euphemistically. In contrast, Montaigne, in 'L'Apologie de Raimond Sebond', seriously considers the Cynic challenge to normative values, and suggests that Cynicism's commitment to nature shows that the normal definitions of vice and virtue should be inverted, in a daring example of paradiastole.

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'Chacun a ouy parler de la des-hontee facon de vivre des philosophes Cynicques': so says Montaigne in editions of the Essais published in his lifetime. (1) Indeed, the Cynics and, in particular, their best-known representative, Diogenes of Sinope of the fourth century BC, were notorious from ancient times onwards for their shameless ways. (2) According to the anecdotes, for which the most important source is the sixth book of Diogenes Laertius's Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers of the third century ad, Diogenes achieved fame and infamy for his strange blend of asceticism, shamelessness, and ready wit. Diogenes regularly performed shocking acts: spitting into people's faces, disrupting lectures by eating salt-fish, as well as urinating, defecating, and masturbating in public. (3) One of Diogenes' disciples, Crates of Thebes, married Hipparchia of Maronea, who, as a Cynic, became the most famous female philosopher of the ancient world. Their 'dog-marriage' (kunogamia), which involved them living and sleeping together in public, brought them notoriety in antiquity and beyond. Such bad manners on the part of Hellenistic philosophers were bound to attract the attention of Montaigne and his contemporaries, fascinated as they were by ancient models of behaviour.

As Montaigne suggests, Cynic shamelessness is almost a commonplace: it is discussed in many late sixteenth-century French texts, including Breslay's Anthologie, the dialogues of Cholieres and Bouchet, the Essais, as well as in religious and medical works. A passing reference by Rabelais in the Tiers Livre to sex 'faicte en veue du Soleil, a la Cynique' provides further evidence of the commonplace status of Cynic shamelessness. (4) By the early seventeenth century, Diogenes' lewd conduct is sufficiently well known for Randle Cotgrave, in his Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues (1611), to define 'Faire le sucre' as 'To frig, to wriggle, to commit Diogenes his sinne'. (5) There is a sense, however, in which the scandalous antics of the Cynics could never be commonplace, since they pose too great a threat to civilized values. This partly explains why works which contain versions of the life of Diogenes, including, for example, Pedro Mexia's Silva de varia leccion (1540), which was available in French from 1552 onwards, and Andre Thevet's Les Vrais Pourtraits (1584), refuse to countenance tales of shamelessness. It also gives rise to the crucial difference between accounts of Cynic shamelessness and the kind of sexual explicitness or lewdness encountered in comic or facetious literature throughout the sixteenth century. This distinction lies in the philosophical justification for the Cynics' disgraceful performance. Whether sixteenth-century writers acknowledge them or not, the possible ethical motivations for Diogenes' bizarre behaviour always underlie his acts. Shamelessness is one of Diogenes' most devastating heuristic strategies for shocking his contemporaries into re-evaluating social norms. By making his body the centre of attention, Diogenes constantly reminds his audience of the physical constraints of their existence. He thereby engages in what Bakhtin calls the 'drama of bodily life', invoking the 'bodily material principle', which is universal. (6) Since all people are embodied, jokes or obscenity that derive from the body are sure-fire subversive techniques. Diogenes' authority or licence comes from his performative use of his body, which simultaneously demonstrates his exemption from civilized values and his commitment to nature. (7) The danger of Diogenes' performance derives from the inevitable association of bodily control with social control. The Cynics blur the boundaries of the body by focusing their audience's attention on the fluids and gases that pass from and between bodies. The Cynics' activities are abominable because they confuse the categories between man and beast. Cynic dirtiness threatens and pollutes the normal order of things. (8)

Shameless Cynic performance gives rise to diverse reactions in the sixteenth century, ranging from disgust to playfulness. However, none of the texts nor any of the authors of the sixteenth century are Cynical themselves in that they do not join Diogenes in advocating a reversal of the social order by returning to nature, although Montaigne comes close. Narrating a story about masturbating in public is not the same as masturbating in public. However, tracing sixteenth century responses to the provocative performance of the ancient Cynics is bound to highlight some of the ways in which writers thought about vice, virtue, nature, obscenity, and the body.