Seduzioni respinte. Su alcune rappresentazioni medievali della moglie di Putifarre e di Susanna ("Sadius et Galo", "Huon d’Auvergne")

Abstract

This article examines the re-emergence of two biblical episodes – Joseph undermined by Potiphar’s wife (Gen. 39:6-20) and the story of Susanna and the Elders (Dan. 13) – in two medieval texts: Sadius et Galo, a story from Walter Map’s De nugis curialium, and in the Franco-Italian chanson de geste Huon d’Auvergne. The episodes both present a failed attempt at seduction and activate two opposite archetypes of female sexuality responding to the same patriarchal construct. In the first the subject of seduction is feminine and the object is masculine, in the second the roles are reversed in gender.