Ninon Dubourg, 'The Literary and Illuminated Depictions of "La Vieille" - A Disabled Old Women as a “narrative prosthesis”'
Abstract: The Roman of the Rose has already been studied in hundreds of publications to this day, as it was one of the most popular medieval French forms of poetry, a type of courtly literature called “mirror of love”, presented as an allegorical dream vision. It is also one of the most frequently and magnificently decorated texts of the Middle Ages. I will discuss one of the Roman’s characters, La vieillesse (the Old Age) and/or La Vieille (the Old Woman), in an intersectional manner, by taking into account gender, age and ability, and in an interdisciplinary way, by using history, art history and literature. I will try to show how the creation of a character who is supposed to be authoritative (or not!) could have used these characteristics to strengthen the narrative.
Biography: Dr Ninon Dubourg (ninon.dubourg@gmail.com) is currently an FRS-FNRS Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the "Transitions" Research Unit at the University of Liège, Belgium (Project DISREL - Disabled people’s religious experiences in Western Europe during the Late Middle Ages (1198-1503)). She holds a PhD in Medieval History from the University of Paris, France. Her research and publications focus on secular and clerical physical, sensory and mental disability in medieval Europe (XII - XV centuries).
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