Catherine Bloomer
Brandeis University
This paper looks to how disability intersects with the tradition of the courtly lady through three representative poems by Guittone d’Arezzo. In the context of the lady whose eyes kill (Ibn Arabi and Guido Cavalcanti are given as contextualizing examples), Eo sono sordo e muto ed orbo fatto describes disability onset in terms of the effects love produces on the body of the poet; Invidia, tu nemicha a catun se’ e links envy to blindness in a metaphorical mode; Ahi, quant’ho che vergogni e che doglia aggio puts the effects of exile into terms of disability gain and connects evil to that which has no medicine, apart from divine pity. In each of these modes, I read embodied experience not only as part of Guittone’s societal critiques, but as a material praxis that furthers his poetic production (in the vein of Singer, 2011) and potentially in the mode of a religious model of disability (Wheatley, 2010). I argue Guittone’s description of disability onset is not only a demonstrative example of the poet’s body suffering through the effects of courtly love, but is also indicative of a cultural understanding of the lived experiences of the disabled and of material conditions.