Genres and Genders of Gerson

Jean Gerson used genres to engender saintly subjectivities. His texts are different kinds of genre performances coming out of his various positions as university professor, master of theology, preacher, and speaker in the public square. The sermon, the central genre of religious literature in the medieval West, and the tract, a new genre in early fifteenth century French society, provide specific examples of Gerson’s adaptive versatility as a writer and theologian. In his Sermon Against Gluttony, Gerson donned the illustrious gown of the University master and preached in the “father tongue.” In his French sermon, Videmus nunc, Gerson put on the robe of the parish priest and evangelized in the mother tongue. In his tract De pollutione nocturna Gerson used an innovative, streamlined genre to write in the voice of a “sexual theologian,” addressing a pressing moral question for clerics of his day.