Gloves à la Chopin: Androgyny, Disability, and the Performance of Consumption

Abstract

Despite the historical evidence of Chopin’s non-normative relationship to gender and disability, musicological scholarship largely neglects this aspect of the revered composer-pianist’s career. Chopin’s Romantic-era Paris put a premium on social intrigue, and the sentimental imagery surrounding consumption posed his chronic illness as a sign of genius, sensitivity and creativity. Presenting himself as a consumptive artist was a compromise between the accommodation of a real, life-altering disease and self-expression through social and artistic means. The resulting artistic persona blurred the boundaries of class, gender, ability, and even that between the real and mythological. Chopin’s artistic persona was celebrated by contemporaneous audiences, who were intrigued by his androgyny and obsessed with his sickness. This thesis explores the interaction between gender nonconformity, disability and romantic pianism. I make the case that Chopin’s artistic persona was both grotesque and fashionable in equal measure, and was wholly emblematic of the Romantic era.