Blindness and Therapy in Late Medieval French and Italian PoetryThis book argues that late medieval love poets, from Petrarch to Machaut and Charles d'Orléans, exploit scientific models as a broad framework within which to redefine the limits of the lyric subject and his body. Just as humoral theory depends upon principles of likes and contraries in order to heal, poetry makes possible a parallel therapeutic system in which verbal oppositions and substitutions counter or rewrite received medical wisdom. The specific case of blindness, a disability that according to the theories of love that predominated in the late medieval West foreclosed the possibility of love, serves as a laboratory in which to explore poets' circumvention of the logical limits of contemporary medical theory. Reclaiming the power of remedy from physicians, these late medieval French and Italian poets prompt us to rethink not only the relationship between scientific and literary authority at the close of the middle ages, but, more broadly speaking, the very notion of therapy. Julie Singer is Assistant Professor of French at Washington University, St Louis. |
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Amor antimedical aveugles ballade Bauchant beloved’s blindfold blindness bodily body Boethian Boethius borgne Cambridge cataract surgery Cerquiglini-Toulet Charles d’Orléans Christine Christine de Pizan cited complaint cuer cure Dante dialogue discourse doctors Dolor Esperance eyeglasses eyes eyesight fifteenth-century figure Fortune’s fourteenth century Francesco Landini French Giacomo Giacomo da Lentini Gilles Gilles li Muisis Guillaume de Machaut Guillaume’s Guy de Chauliac healing heart impairment irony Italian Jean Jean de Meun John the Blind late medieval Latin literary Livre love-imprint lover lovesickness lyric prosthesis manuscript medicine metaphor metonymy Middle Ages Middle French narrative narrator narrator’s Nonchaloir occhi optical Paris Petrarch Philosophy physicians physiological poems poet’s poetic poetry poets Polyphemus prosthesis prosthetic pseudo-Senecan Ratio Remede de Fortune remediis fortuitorum remediis utriusque fortunae remedy rhetorical rondeau siècle sonnet surgical synecdoche text’s textual therapeutic therapy thirteenth tion tradition translation troubadour University Press vernacular verse virelai vision visual Voir Dit’s
Bibliographic information
| Title | Blindness and Therapy in Late Medieval French and Italian Poetry Volume 20 of Gallica (Woodbridge (Suffolk, England))), ISSN 1749-091X Volume 20 of Gallica Series |
| Author | Julie Singer |
| Edition | illustrated |
| Publisher | Boydell & Brewer Ltd, 2011 |
| ISBN | 1843842726, 9781843842729 |
| Length | 238 pages |
| Subjects | › Literary Criticism / Medieval |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |