Wikipedia

User:Dodger67/Sandbox/Disability in literature

< User:Dodger67‎ | Sandbox

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

edit

Pre-Classical

edit

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

edit

Greek

edit

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

edit

Mythology, philosophers, etc

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

Medieval

edit

Latin

edit

Byzantine

edit

Norse

edit

Celtic

edit

Renaissance

edit

Italian, French, etc Shakespeare

Enlightenment

edit

Modern

edit

19th century

edit

The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

Dickens' "Tiny Tim"

20th century

edit

Post-modern

edit

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

edit

Persian

edit

Ottoman Empire

edit

Arabic

edit

South Asian literature

edit

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

Hindu

edit

Buddhist

edit

East Asian literature

edit

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

China

edit

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

Japan

edit

African literature

edit

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

edit

Pre-Columbian

edit

(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

edit

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

Hispanic

edit

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

Polynesia

edit

Maori

edit

Possible sources:


See also

edit

References

edit
  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.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Dodger67/Sandbox/Disability_in_literature&oldid=963902749"