The Necropolitics of Narcissus: Confessions of Transgender Suicide in the Middle Ages.
- Author/Editor
- Bychowski, M. W.
- Title
- The Necropolitics of Narcissus: Confessions of Transgender Suicide in the Middle Ages.
- Published
- Medieval Feminist Forum 55 (2019): 207-48.
- Review
- Bychowski notes that the goal of "Confessio Amantis" is "to bring those excluded and isolated by the presumptions of the world, especially anyone in a wood of suicide, into meaningful and life-giving community discourse" (209). Hence, the CA and the confessional genre of poetry writ large "may be considered a literary and social form by which trans persons would be known and controlled as well as how trans lives came to embody and resist these discursive structures of genre and gender" (209). Narcissus, in particular, is the representative of the trans community in Gower's poem and is the focus of the four sections of the essay: "The Wód of Suicide," "The 'Ymage' of the Nymphs," "The Wonder Hot Day," and "Flowers in Winter." Each section centers on a Middle English keyword: "wód," "ymage," "condiciŏun," and "otherwhiles." In "The Wód of Suicide," Bychowski asserts that Gower's Confessio Amantis has a "necropolitical frame"--that confession is what brings Gower back from the brink of death as he despairs his isolation in a wood of suicide (219). She illustrates the ambiguity of the word "wood" in Middle English, concluding the "wód" is confession's public form, and that the creation of alternative "wóds" allows a space for reclamation. In "Ymage," Bychowski writes, through framing, "'The Tale of Narcissus' turns social presumptions into confessions that reveal certain truths while eschewing others" (228). "Ymage" in this tale sets in sharp relief the social construction of gender: Narcissus recognizes themself as a woman but has been taught not to see themself that way. For Bychowski, precariousness rather than personal vanity is the "condiciŏun" for Gower's iteration of "The Tale of Narcissus": their division from women as a result of patriarchy, the well as potentially a place of reconditioning in which Narcissus can see a feminine self without judgment. Finally, in "Flowers in Winter," Bychowski defines "otherwhiles" as "alternative times and events that play out again and again" and "time[s] beyond rest" (241-42). The slow death of suicide is highlighted in the context of these "otherwhiles," and in so doing, Gower provides a space in which to contemplate liveable and bright trans futures. The essay establishes both significant theoretical terminology (e.g., "trans necropolitics") and social positioning (e.g., "By allowing medieval confession to speak together with trans theory, readers can better see that cultural genealogies of anti-trans sentiment continue to run in the blood of patriarchies and some feminist movements, so-called 'Trans-exclusive Radical Feminists' (TERF), even as these systems of presumption and exclusion take different forms in medieval and post-medieval eras" (216). [JS. Copyright. The John Gower Society. eJGN 40.2.]
- Date
- 2019
- Gower Subjects
- Confessio Amantis
Language and Word Studies