"Man / The which, for his complexioun
Is mad upon divisioun"
John Gower
Confessio Amantis
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by M.W. Bychowski
Accessus: Vol. 3: Iss. 1, Article 3.
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Abstract
On the brink of the twenty-first century, Judith Butler argues in “Undiagnosing Gender” that the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) defines the psychiatric condition of “Gender Identity Disorder” (or “Gender Dysphoria”) in ways that control biological diversity and construct “transgender” as a marginalized identity. By turning the study of gender away from vulnerable individuals and towards the broader systems of power, Butler works to liberate bodies from the medical mechanisms managing difference and precluding potentially disruptive innovations in forms of life and embodiment by creating categories of gender and disability.
Turning to the brink of the 15th century, we find that John Gower’s Confessio Amantis narrates the division and dysphoria of gender according to the hermeneutic of the seven deadly sins. The “Tale of Iphis and Ianthe” occurs in the Confessio’s Book IV on “acedia,” or sloth. Iphis, whose story is bordered by a priest’s penitential advice and thereby related to sloth, is a biologically female youth dressed as a boy and later physically transformed into a man. Medieval disability scholars have demonstrated that for premodern thinkers, religion and medicine were so intertwined as to be inseparable, especially in cases such as the management of sloth, where the symptoms of depression, despair, and sluggishness spanned the categorizes of physical and spiritual disease. Gower himself considers the God of Love to be both cause and physician of this ailment.
In “Unconfessing Transgender,” I contend that Gower's text considers the medical definition and control of medieval “trans” bodies under the auspices of sin by presenting both Iphis’s problem and cure as socially constructed. The first part of this article explores “Divisioun and Dysphoria” to establish how Gower prefigures the modern social model of transgender as an experience of living in a world full of change and contradiction. In part two, the particular social forms of “divisioun” identified as “Acedia and Depression” signal Gower’s discussion of the sin of sloth that frames the “Tale of Iphis and Ianthe.” In the third part, I examine how Gower's removal of the dysphoric youth’s voice and agency in the tale emphasizes the systematic character of suffering caused by a dysphoric Nature (represented by Isis) and a subjugating patriarchal Nature (represented by Eros).
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Eve Salisbury for her indispensable enthusiasm and insights throughout the birthing of this piece, as well as Georgiana Donavin, Jonathan Hsy, Chelsey Faloona, and other readers who helped (like Isis) to midwife this dysphoric work into the world. Furthermore, I would like to extend gratitude to Jenny Boyar, Sarah Gillette, and Pamela Yee, who presented alongside me on the Gower Project panel, “Gower and Medicine,” at the International Medieval Congress in Kalamazoo, MI, in May 2015. For the conviviality and mentorship that has helped in the development of this project, I thank Robert McRuer and David Mitchell, as well as Jeffrey J. Cohen and all members of the George Washington University Medieval and Early Modern Studies Institute. Finally, to my partner in all things, the Rev. Rachel J. Bahr, and our children, who every day teach me more about the power of speaking together, the agency of youth, and the radical demands of love, I dedicate this work to you.
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Accessus
Accessus: A Journal of Premodern Literature and New Media is a biannual publication of The Gower Project. In Accessus, The Gower Project publishes theoretically informed readings of premodern literatures, demonstrates the impact of new media on these texts, and provides a venue for innovative work on John Gower's poetry.
The Forward to this issue was written by Georgiana Donavin, bepress (DC Admins), and Eve Salisbury, Western Michigan University. In this Foreword, the editors summarize the articles published in Accessus 3.1 and offer conclusions about their importance for Gower Studies and contemporary medical practice.
The issue also features another Gower Project participant, "Reflection, Interrupted: Material Mirror Work in the Confessio Amantis" by Jenny Boyar, University of Rochester. In the abstract for the article, Boyar writes: The Confessio Amantis concludes with a revelatory scene in which Venus holds up a mirror to Amans, allowing him to recognize John Gower the poet— a moment that is often read as a mimetic and healing counterpoint to the Confessio’s sickness and self-questioning. My intention in this paper is to very slightly modify certain aspects of this narrative, to consider how the materiality of the mirror can inform its metaphoric deployments in the Confessio. I organize my discussion around two seemingly contrasting moments in the poem in which the self is seen and in different ways recognized through a reflective surface: the “Tale of Narcissus,” and the concluding moment in which Amans looks into the mirror to see, eventually, John Gower. Drawing in particular on the production and dissemination of mirrors in the Middle Ages, as well as basic properties of reflection, I point to certain challenges facing the medieval mirror: the hazy reflective properties of the lead mirror, and the impurities of the precariously made, limitedly accessible glass mirror. I ultimately suggest that, more than a revelation through reflective recognition, the Confessio’s ending would have proven most resonant for its portrayal of seeing through a complicated medium.
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