L’étymologie de lesbienne et lesbin en français. L’histoire croisée de deux lexies autonomes
Nicholas Lo Vecchio. 2019. “L’étymologie de lesbienne et lesbin en français. L’histoire croisée de deux lexies autonomes” [The etymology of lesbienne and lesbin in French: The confused history of two independent lexemes]. Revue de Linguistique Romane 83, pp. 443–456.
French etymological dictionaries state that lesbienne “lesbian” is derived from an obsolete masculine form lesbin designating the passive partner in male homosexual sex. In fact, these are two completely separate loanwords with independent histories that etymologists have confused. Lesbienne is an adaptation of the Greek, via Latin lesbius, -a, initially denoting simply the inhabitants of the island of Lesbos (starting in the 15th century), later evolving to figurative meanings. Lesbin “bardache, mignon” is a 17th-century loan from Italian whose origin can be traced back to a character in Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata and underwent a process of antonomasia in French.
Keywords: etymology, lexicology, loanwords, antonomasia, homosexuality, Tasso
Supplementary materials for Queer & Trans Philologies conference, 2024
I presented this paper with updated materials to Queer & Trans Philologies (Cambridge University, March 2024). Abstract and supplementary materials appear below.
French lesbin: An Early Modern Queer Reading of Tasso’s Gerusalemme Liberata
Early seventeenth-century French readers of Torquato Tasso’s Gerusalemme Liberata (1581) appear to have given a queer reading, avant la lettre, to this celebrated Italian Renaissance epic poem recounting First Crusade combat. In Canto 9, when the young page Lesbin(o) is killed on the battlefield, a disconsolate Sultan Solimano determines to avenge his page’s killer. A minor plot point in terms of lines of verse devoted to it, this scene took on significant import in contemporaneous (and later) exegesis, symbolizing for some a key to Tasso’s elegiac creation.
Though the character Lesbin(o) would resurface in derivative poetry and later as a stock character in commedia dell’arte plays in Italian, no queer antonomastic extension is known. In French, however, attested uses of antonomastic lesbin – though relatively few in the textual record – reveal an explicitly queer interpretation, as lesbin came to refer to the passive partner in sex between men, equated with the figure of the bardache. The French lexeme lesbin can be situated within a cross-linguistic intertextual network of semantic relations, with an established link to BARDACHE and with a likely – though as yet hypothetical – etymological link to LESBIAN, notwithstanding the etymology provided in French dictionaries for lesbienne, attesting to a surprisingly long (and erroneous, if revealing) legacy within the reference lexicography.
Building upon the etymological correction proposed in Lo Vecchio (2019), the talk will delve further into some queer lexicological-philological aspects of the French Italianism lesbin, addressing methodological issues, semantic relations, and especially the many ambiguities and questions raised by this suggestive literary lexical curiosity.
Downloads:
➔ Supplementary materials for Queer and Trans Philologies, March 2024
Nicholas Lo Vecchio. 2019. “L’étymologie de lesbienne et lesbin en français. L’histoire croisée de deux lexies autonomes.” Revue de Linguistique Romane 83, pp. 443–456.
Le substantif lesbienne “femme homosexuelle” est présenté dans les dictionnaires comme dérivé de la forme masculine lesbin “bardache, mignon”, mais cette explication comporte des raccourcis anachroniques et nécessite une révision en profondeur. En réalité, lesbienne et lesbin sont deux lexies autonomes et ne sauraient être considérées comme faisant partie de la même famille dérivationnelle : lesbien, -ienne est une adaptation française de l’hellénisme latin lesbius, -a, d’abord attestée comme détoponyme au XVe siècle ; lesbin est un italianisme emprunté au début du XVIIe siècle sans association avec les habitants de l’île de Lesbos. Ce dernier a subi, en français, un processus d’antonomase à partir du nom du personnage Lesbin dans la Gerusalemme liberata de Torquato Tasso, pouvant également être soutenu par la présence d’un personnage du même nom dans plusieurs autres sources italiennes.
Mots-clés : étymologie, lexicologie, emprunt, antonomase, homosexualité, Tasso
Supports supplémentaires pour le colloque Queer & Trans Philologies, 2024
J’ai présenté cette contribution lors du colloque Queer & Trans Philologies (Cambridge University, mars 2024). Des supports supplémentaires sont téléchargeables ci-dessous:
➔ Support supplémentaire pour Queer & Trans Philologies, mars 2024
➔ Slides de l’intervention Q&TP