Courtesan
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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A courtesan is a term descendent from French courtisane, from Italian cortigiana, feminine of cortigiano ‘courtier’, from corte ‘court’. Literally, the word means "a lady of the court"; since the mid-16th century the term has been in usage for a high-class prostitute or mistress, especially one associated with rich, powerful, or upper-class men who provided luxuries and status in exchange for her services. A French dictionary published in 1873 describes a courtesan as "toute femmes de mauvaise vie qui est au-dessus des simple prostituées." (All women of vice who are above the simple prostitutes.) In Renaissance Europe, courtesans played an important role in upper-class society, sometimes taking the place of wives at social functions. As it was customary during this time for royal couples to lead separate lives—commonly marrying simply to preserve bloodlines and to secure political alliances—men would often seek sexual gratification and companionship from a courtesan.
Courtesans usually enjoyed more freedoms than was typical of women at the time. For example, they were financially stable and independent. Being in control of their own resources meant that they did not need to rely on their spouses or male relatives to survive, as was the case for the majority of women.
Famous courtesans
The term "courtesan" has often been used in the political context to damage the reputation of a powerful woman, or disparage her importance. Particularly striking examples of this are when the title was applied to the Byzantine empress Theodora, who had started life as a burlesque actress but later became the wife of the Emperor Justinian and, after her death, an Orthodox saint; the term "courtesan" has also been disparagingly and inaccurately applied to influential women like Anne Boleyn, Madaline Bishop, Diane de Poitiers, Mathilde Kschessinska, Pamela Harriman and Eva Perón.
In fiction
Pietro Aretino, an Italian Renaissance writer, wrote a series of dialogues (Capricciosi ragionamenti) in which a mother teaches her daughter what options are available to women and how to be an effective courtesan. The French novelist Balzac wrote about a courtesan in his Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes (1838–47). Emile Zola likewise wrote a novel, Nana (1880), about a courtesan in nineteenth-century France.
- Inara Serra, a 26th century Alliance companion in Joss Whedon's TV series Firefly.
- The Woman of the Camilias was a novel about a courtesan by French author Alexandre Dumas, fils that was turned into the opera La Traviata by Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi. In the opera, the courtesan's name is "Violetta". "La Traviata" in Italian translates "The Wayward One".
- Satine played by Nicole Kidman, an actress/courtesan who falls in love with a penniless poet/writer played by Ewan McGregor, in the movie Moulin Rouge!.
- Phèdre nó Delaunay, the premier courtesan of Terre D'Ange in Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel's Legacy novels
- The movie Dangerous Beauty, starring Catherine McCormack, tells the story of Veronica Franco, a Venetian courtesan.
- Nana, in Emile Zola's famous novel of 1880 should count as a courtesan
- In Sarah Dunant's In the Company of the Courtesan, Fiammetta Bianchini, a renowned courtesan of Rome, and her sharp-witted dwarf rise to success among the intrigue and secrets of Renaissance Venice.
- In John Cleland's Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, Fanny goes from poor orphaned country girl to wealthy skilled courtesan eventually finding her one true love and retiring to marriage. Her history is told in the first person through several letters to friends detailing her life as a courtesan.
- Gigi is a 1944 novel by the French writer Colette about a wealthy cultured man of fashion who discovers he is in love with a young Parisian girl being groomed for a career as a grande cocotte and eventually marries her.
Citations
- Courtesans : Money, Sex and Fame in the Nineteenth Century by Katie Hickman (2003). New York: Morrow. ISBN 0-06-620955-2.
