“[S]treite vnto my mirrour and my glas”: Disabled Ethos in Thomas Hoccleve’s “My Compleinte”

Abstract

Abstract Invoking James J. Murphy’s reminder that we can still learn from people of the past, this article examines Thomas Hoccleve’s 1420 poem “My Compleinte” as an example of medieval “disability rhetorics,” or how disabled people themselves speak about disability and being disabled. In this poem, Hoccleve adapts the genre of the speculum principis (mirror for princes), which guides readers toward moral action, to depict his past mental breakdown and subsequent social alienation in order to exhort his former friends to amend their attitudes toward him. While disability as a concept and an identity proves anachronistic in relation to the Middle Ages, Hoccleve’s poem presents a vital case study in ethos construction driven by disability, reflecting some of the same rhetorical concerns facing disabled rhetors today despite the passage of time.