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User:Dodger67/Sandbox/Disability in literature

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The depiction of disability in literature has varied widely throughout history and across cultures. The way stories represent people with disabilities can be both a reflection of how a society views disability and a vehicle for perpetuating, or occasionally challenging, stereotypes about disability.

Literary representations of disability can emphasise the exclusion and 'otherness' of disability.[1] Moreover, representations of disability tend towards either negative stereotyping of disability or a romantic 'overcoming all odds' story,[2] similar to the `supercrip' narrative attributed to Ware.[3]


( A really good source for expanding the lead - http://illnessandcivilization.blogspot.com/2009/08/disability-in-literature-by-samuel.html )


Disabled characters in literature can often be sorted into a few stereotypes:

  • The hideous villain
  • The tragic victim (Dickens' Tiny Tim), "crippled beggars"
  • The triumphant hero
  • The holy fool

Western literature

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Pre-Classical

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The Sumerian gods Enki and Ninmah, who created humans and assigned them jobs, gave work to several people with disabilities. Enki designated a man, who “could not bend his outstretched weak hands”, to be the king's servant. A blind man became a musician. A man with paralyzed feet was made a silversmith. An intellectually impaired or deaf man became a courier.[4]

An ancient Egyptian text (British Museum Papyrus No. 10474) reads: "Beware of robbing a wretch or attacking a cripple. Do not laugh at a blind man, nor tease a dwarf, nor cause hardship for the lame. Don't tease a man who is in the hand of the god"(i.e. ill or insane).[5]

Classical

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Greek

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In classical Greek literature there were three mythological figures who had disabilities. Hephaestus, the god of fire and artisans, was lame. His lameness was treated with humour in Homeric texts. Thersites was a fictional figure in the Illiad. He had a variety of deformities as a result of being punished by Odysseus. Described as vulgar, obscene and dull-witted, Odysseus hit him with Agamemnon's sceptre when he insulted Achilles and Agamemnon. Teiresias was a blind prophet of Zeus, various stories tell that he became blind as punishment for revealing secrets of the gods.[6]

Roman

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Mythology, philosophers, etc

Source: http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:269567 (requires academic library access)

Medieval

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Latin

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Byzantine

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Norse

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Celtic

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Renaissance

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Italian, French, etc Shakespeare

Enlightenment

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Modern

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19th century

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The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

Dickens' "Tiny Tim"

20th century

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Post-modern

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Proposed theme: Late 20th century to the present - Literature in the disability rights era

The novel Me Before You was made into a movie which attracted protest from disability rights activists who described it as a "disability snuff movie".[7][8][9]

Middle Eastern literature

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Persian

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Ottoman Empire

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Arabic

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South Asian literature

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possible source: http://www.independentliving.org/docs7/miles200807.html#south_asia

Hindu

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Buddhist

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East Asian literature

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Bibliography here may be of use: http://www.independentliving.org/docs7/miles200807.html#east_asia

China

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Subdivide by dynastic era or whatever makes most sense in terms of the literary traditions

Japan

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African literature

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No pre-colonial literature as such exists but the oral tradition of various African cultures is fairly well covered in ethnographies. A possible exception is Coptic literature from before the Arabic/Islamic era in North and East Africa.

The Americas

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Pre-Columbian

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(Inca, Aztec, Maya, North American nations, etc)

(From the conquest era onwards the literature can probably be grouped with the "Western" under Renaissance, Enlightenment, etc unless it is clearly a continuation of Pre-Columbian native tradition separate from the western "mainstream" tradition.)

Native American

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http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/haa/summary/v002/2.landsman.html

Hispanic

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Maybe this is a useful subdivision, maybe not; it depends on how distinct the Hispanic literary tradition is from "mainstream" western discourse.

Polynesia

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Maori

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Possible sources:


See also

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References

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  1. ^ Paul T. Jaeger; Cynthia Ann Bowman (2005). Understanding Disability: Inclusion, Access, Diversity, And Civil Rights. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 104–. ISBN 978-0-275-98226-3. Retrieved 6 June 2012.
  2. ^ Paul T. Jaeger; Cynthia Ann Bowman (2005). Understanding Disability: Inclusion, Access, Diversity, And Civil Rights. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 106. ISBN 978-0-275-98226-3. Retrieved 6 June 2012.
  3. ^ Ware, L. P. (2002). "A Moral Conversation on Disability: Risking the Personal in Educational Contexts". Hypatia. 17 (3): 143–172. doi:10.1111/j.1527-2001.2002.tb00945.x.
  4. ^ Judy Duchan's History of Speech-Language Pathology - Mesopotamia — 3500 BC to 539 BC
  5. ^ Lichtheim, M. (English translator) (1976) The Instruction of Amenemope, The. (British Museum Papyrus No. 10474.) In M. Lichtheim Ancient Egyptian Literature. A Book of Readings. Vol II: The New Kingdom (pp. 146–63). Berkeley, CA: Univ. California Press. Quoted in Judy Duchan's History of Speech-Language Pathology - Ancient Egypt — 3500 BC to 100 BC
  6. ^ Judy Duchan's History of Speech-Language Pathology - Ancient Greece — 500 BC to 100 AD
  7. ^ Gilbey, Ryan (2 June 2016). "'I'm not a thing to be pitied': the disability backlash against Me Before You". the Guardian. Retrieved 10 March 2018.
  8. ^ Nightingale, Tom (17 June 2016). "'Disability snuff film' begins screening in Australia". ABC News. Retrieved 10 March 2018.
  9. ^ Wanshel, Elyse (10 June 2016). "The Disability Community Is Pissed AF About 'Me Before You'". Huffington Post. Retrieved 10 March 2018.
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