Neighboring Disability in Medieval Literature

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article brings together Critical Disability Studies and the ethics of neighboring to examine not only the intimate alterity of disabled figures in medieval literature, but also how nonnormative embodiments are a recurring feature in the ethical discourse of the neighbor. Neighbor-love and disability justice share an ethical orientation that emphasizes difference, yet the ethics of the neighbor stresses an asymmetrical and non-reciprocal relationship between self and other whereas an ethics of care emphasizes interdependence. However, attending to the nonnormative embodiment of the neighbor introduces a transformed sense of reciprocity to the neighborly encounter. In order to think about the generative possibilities of the intersection between neighborliness and disability, the paper explores varied encounters with nonnormative embodiments, including the meeting between King Edward and the disabled beggar Ghillie Michael in Matthew Paris’s History of Saint Edward the King and the confrontation between Arthur’s court and the loathly lady in The Wedding Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle. Each of these encounters seemingly illustrate a drive towards normalcy, a temporality of inclusion where the strangeness of the neighborly figure is neutralized through miraculous or magical means. Centering nonnormative figures in these narratives, however, reveals the working of parasynchrony, a shared temporality that resists a turn toward normativity and enables reciprocity based not on exchange but on interdependence and mutual care.