The poet and misogynist:  A Kunderian theorem

By Dilshan Boange

One of the great successors to the fiction writing form(s) of the ‘magically real’, that to a great extent finds its roots in the fiction of Franz Kafka, is the Czech born author Milan Kundera.

As a practitioner of the art of fiction writing in the modernist and postmodernist traditions Kundera’s contributions to the world of contemporary literature is monumental especially when it comes to exploring the newer forms of the novel that have evolved in the latter part of the 20th century in Europe.

Milan Kundera

One of Kundera’s most well loved works The Book of Laughter and Forgetting is a quasi –biographical work that blurs the lines (at times in the course of the narrative) between fiction and biography. Part five of this novel which is titled –Litost a most intriguing perspective is presented through the argumentative dialogues of some rather eccentric characters.

The scene is set in Prague where Kundera tells us (as the narrator of the story) the greatest poets of the country had met in ‘the Writers Club’ and a great many engagingly engrossing conversations spiral as the poets sit at a table laden with bottles of wine.

An aspect that is rather interesting in this episode is that Kundera has named these poets with the names of many esteemed figures in European literature. They are presented to us as –Voltaire, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Goethe, Verlaine, and so on.

Central argument

One of the topics that come up in the course of this scene is from ‘Boccaccio’ after listening to an incident related by ‘Petrarch’ about a young girl who had stalked him to his apartment at night to profess her admiration to him.

Boccaccio scorns Petrarch for having been gentle to the young lady and for not having been stern with her in rebutting her improper conduct and goes on to accuse Petrarch for being a woman worshiper.

It is from this point in the narrative a theorem of sorts is put forward by Boccaccio of how men are (in his beliefs) categorised in relation to their attitude(s) towards women, more specifically in terms as lovers, one may understand. The division according to Boccaccio is specified in the following words –

“Men have always been divided into two categories. Worshippers of women, otherwise known as poets, and misogynists, or, more accurately, gynophobes.” What is interesting is how Boccaccio goes on to expound his theorem by elaborating the different ways that the two types have in their perceptions in respect of how they view women and what they value of women. The fundamental quality that is at the centre of this division is said to be ‘femininity’.

According to the words of Boccaccio the worshippers or the poets revere women for their femininity and qualities that typify the image of woman in the very traditional sense of male perceptions.

Feminine feelings such as motherhood, homeliness, fertility, the divine voice of nature, and even ‘sacred flashes of hysteria’ are seen as some of these womanly qualities that the poet would value and admire. These are seen as qualities worthy of reverence, veneration and thus one could say develops a sense of the poetic.

Boccaccio says that the poets or worshipers can bring into the life of a woman drama, passion and tears. Understandably, one may conjecture that a person who is disposed in a more poetic and artistic sense would create moments of drama and impassionedness through their ways in dealing with people and responding to emotions both their own and of others.

Yet these qualities are said by Boccaccio to be what cannot bring happiness to a woman! And says it is only with a misogynist, who is in fact troubled by the very idea of idealising the femininely virtuous traits of a woman, that a woman can be happy.

Defining the misogynist

The argument may seem rather undeveloped from the mundane point of approaching it through the given term ‘misogynist’, which of course means a person who hates women, and it is this very point that Kundera has addressed through the words of his character Boccaccio who explains –“Misogynist don’t despise women. Misogynist don’t like femininity.” And going on this line explains further that while the main interest of the poet is the ‘femininity’ of a woman, while the misogynist prefers the ‘woman’ to her femininity.

This presents a rather interesting framework of conceptions to theorise on gender politics. When Kundera through the voice of his character Boccaccio presents the outlook of misogynists as ones who ‘always prefer women to femininity’ there is a certain divorcing of the character quality of femininity from the human being –the woman. Therefore, it appears to imply a sense of limiting the woman as a primarily physical entity who is preferred for that physicality rather than for any aesthetic sense her character may offer, which seems to be what the poet in contrast to the misogynist would prefer. By my understanding the primacy being given to the physical dimension of the female being (by the misogynist) is a strong statement on the aspect of sexuality and carnal desire being of paramount to the misogynist while the poet could be fancifully afloat with his poetic veneration of the woman whose femininity inspires him.

Probable view of the misogynist of woman

Why then does the text of The Book of Laughter and Forgetting propound that a woman can be happy only with a misogynist? Giving though to this line of argument one can suggest it is bound with the aspect of physical gratification.

Of what good would the poet be to the woman who desires physical satisfaction when the man is preoccupied with worshipping her femininity and perhaps not fulfilling her need to feel that her physicality is fully indulged in and in return made to feel gratified? What good would a night of serenading and gentle sensuousness be to the woman whose desires are about satisfying erotic carnal fantasies? Would the misogynist be the type of man who could make a woman happy going by this line of argument? If so why? It seems that when the inner being of femininity and the virtues which the poet reveres in the woman is stripped of her, she is primarily a form of flesh. It is this desire for the most primordial sense that creates the scale of who would a woman be happier with? Does this suggest somehow that the woman desires to be seen as ‘flesh’ and thus in some sense dehumanised? Certainly, such a suggestion will be one that will be contentious in many respects.

However,there is a strong suggestion in the Kunderian text that the satisfaction sought on the part of the woman (mainly as expounded by the voice of Boccaccio) is not for the genteelness offered by the kind as the poet, but the approach of the misogynist who by indulging in the aspect of ‘woman’ (devoid of femininity) would probably make the female feel ‘more of a woman’ than the poet would through his lofty ways that may be more of a surreal (and even spiritual) indulgence than a strongly bodily one.

Female body as an object of desire

Thus it seems that the theorem of the character of Boccaccio is that the fundamental happiness required by a woman is to be gratified in terms of her being as ‘woman’ giving primary focus to her physical, bodily being. Perhaps this perspective is telling of the modern perceptions of European society where the human body and at that the female body is objectified greatly for purposes that range from artistic to commercial.

And perhaps in Kundera’s understanding the modern woman desires to be more affirmed of her value in terms of her physical, bodily attributes, which can very well be even thought of as ‘assets’ given certain modern perceptions and priorities in society which is evident at times by the importance that is placed in presenting the woman as a sexually appealing image, as women themselves would at times see it fitting.

Therefore, the question of objectification comes into focus. Does the woman desire to be objectified, especially as a physical entity understood in terms of sexual appeal? It seems that according to Kundera, the female psychology he very subtlety hints at, suggests that the woman would very much feel a ‘woman’ when she is made the object of a man’s desire, and at that carnal desire.

And by this line of thinking we can believe that it is the ‘man’ the male, who affirms and validates the female of her womanliness, and the happiness of such a woman (in Kunderian argument spoken through Boccaccio), is fulfilled by the misogynist and not the poet.

An episode from Nadine Gordimer’s July’s People

In regards to the line of discussion developed in this article I would like to cite a certain scene from the novel July’s People by the South African Nobel literature laureate Nadine Gordimer.

Having to flee the city life after civil unrest a white South African family takes refuge in the backward rural community of their servant named July. Having to adapt to what is pretty much life in a ‘mild wilderness’ the family finds themselves transforming into more rugged beings deprived of their previous modern amenities and luxuries.

‘Bam’ the father discovers his abilities as a hunter and in one instance hunts a wart-hog and makes a spit roast of it. Having enjoyed the fresh roasted meat of their kill in the great outdoors that night the husband and wife make love for the first time after they fled the city to the life in the bush.

The end of the scene tells us that after the night of copulation that had obviously been one of some considerable physical, bodily intensity Bam wakes up in the morning and “...had a moment of hallucinatory horror...” seeing blood on his manhood and thinking it was that of the pig he had killed only to realise instantly that it was in fact of his wife. What can one deduce from this scenario? Surely it is obvious that the ruggedness of the wild was making the masculinity of Bam reach deep into some hidden primordial sense which would have been heightened by the experience of hunting and roasting the prey which could have awoken a sense of alpha maleness.

And the lovemaking thereafter, that very night, could have evoked a sense of the primordial in a way that made the aspect of the physical be stripped of all genteelness.

I remember in the final year in university this novel being a text discussed in class in a lecture by Shamima Zubair, I contended that the act of lovemaking on the part of Bam was possibly a crude parody of the Bam as the hunter where his wife is seen as the prey –the meat, the flesh that he will conquer through his masculine prowess. In my own words it was ‘she was the pig’.

After all why would he immediately be struck by the thought of the blood on his member being of the pig he killed? It is a manifestation of the subconscious which may have been giving way for Bam to awaken the savageness in his male being owing to the circumstances that impel him to be more bound to the rugged life in the bush. However, there should be no misunderstanding the novel of Gordimer suggests that the wife felt to be a woman fulfilled in terms of her desires.

There is nothing in that episode in July’s People to such effect as to affirm Boccaccio’s words in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. But it maybe demonstrative of the misogynist as per Kunderian description which I believe is a point worth considering in terms of literary analysis.

Poet or the misogynist: Who is better?

Who of the two? –the poet or the misogynist, is capable of bringing happiness to the woman may be a question with no definite answer.

Perhaps it is a question that the fairer sex is better positioned to answer. I remember mentioning this theorem of the poet and the misogynist to some of my batch mates who read English, and all of them who were there at that moment being ones of the fairer sex were in favour of the poet saying that the misogynist would be one who would seek to crassly objectify the woman as opposed to the poet who would idealise the worth of a woman for what she is beyond the physical frame.

However , there was a dissenting view, by one –Farah Macanmaker who said, the poet could be equally bad as (if not even worse than) the misogynist, since the poet could in his devotedness to idealise the woman and praise her virtues in his own subjective perceptions stereotype the woman, and further believe that he must ‘possess’ her and thereby make himself to be the one in rightful ownership over the woman. Such possessiveness could become daunting, surely, regardless of how sweet the serenading may be.