In comic-realistic poetry Rustico Filippi, drawing on Latin poetry and medieval Artes dictandi, vituperates the ugly woman for her disgusting body and bad odour, which obliquely reveals immoderate sexuality
perfection, decorum, fruition of divine love, ultimately truth. A study of literary female ugliness must necessarily take into account the classical aesthetic models dominant in the Western canon and then focus on exploring instances of infringement on this canon. The transgression of models of feminine beauty works at different levels, from the subversion of distinctive conventional elements (old age, dark hair or skin) to parodistic remakes of the most common models. 7 In the Renaissance, the transgression of the canon no longer targets age and morals but social groups and manners. Therefore, ugly women are associated with lower social classes, such as peasants, and are ridiculed for their oversize, disproportionate bodies, and filth. Their ugly bodies contravene the rules of proportion and perfection glorified in the refined environment of Renaissance courts and do not conform to the dictates of decorum, elegance, and cleanliness. In baroque poetry, canonical disruption is often minimal. Women are no longer portrayed as ugly and disgusting, but rather as beautiful in their imperfection: canon infraction here targets in particular the colour of the hair and skin. Continue reading
