Emo Girlboss Poetry Is Older Than You Think
By Isabel Daniel
We’ve all been there: it’s 3 am and the world feels like it’s ending, so you decide to unleash all your worst metaphors about life and love in the notes app. In the morning you go to check your masterpiece only to find something so melodramatic you can barely understand it. Pretty much everyone has experienced something like this before (whether they want to admit it or not), but we’re not the first ones to voice these extreme desires and discontentments.
It’s important to know the poets who came before you. The bad news: learning history is hard. The good news: I’m taking a Medieval literature course so you don’t have to. Medieval poetry is more progressive than you would think. These women not only knew that they were being oppressed but figured out a way to take advantage of it in their writing and make money off of it.
The poets I am mainly discussing were part of the Courtly Love Troubadour movement that happened in France in the 12th century. The movement began as a way for men to praise noblewomen who were married to elite men, which seemed to reverse gender hierarchies by elevating the status of women over men. In reality, there was still rampant misogyny, but the paradox of being simultaneously lauded and oppressed put these women in an interesting spot.
As a result the Trobairitz, or women Troubadour, movement began. Women recognized the powerless yet honored position they were in and tried to make the most they could out of it by responding with their own writing. Many of the poems include lines about how they are the fairest or most intelligent or sweetest woman that the man has ever met, and if the poem is a sad one, that the man is a fool for letting go of the best thing he will ever have. These poems were largely about finally having an avenue to express their discontent with the gender disparity in their society, as well as their wish for genuine love.
Since marriage was organized explicitly for social mobility, women were unable to marry based on love. As a result, the troubadour poems often focused on these desires for a romantic and even sexual partner who could give them the love that they craved. Despite how dangerous it could have been for them to show their discontent with their lives and marriages, they were determined to write their truths, consequences be damned.
As empowering as that is, these unfiltered desires are what resulted in what I think resembles modern-day notes app poetry. I appreciate the bravery to call men out for their lies, obsession with power, and misogyny, but these women were already of a higher class so they didn’t have as much to lose by doing this. Regardless of if that should be considered feminist or not, it is very much in line with a “girlboss” mentality of female empowerment that is very self-oriented.
For example, the poet Isabella writes, “Elias Cairel, you’re a phony / if I ever saw one, / like a man who says he’s sick / when he hasn’t got the slightest pain.” The first time I read this poem I was shocked by her forwardness of calling the man out for being a “phony” and I thought good for her. But overwhelmingly as I read this piece, I want to laugh at how dramatic she is in her honesty.
It made me realize that when people are in situations of high emotions, no matter the time period, our writing will always reflect that tension. This is not something new that we are doing now that we can write on our phones. The need to express ourselves is inherently human. Sometimes our feelings are stronger than our senses, but luckily we can always revise and tone down the emo metaphors. And crucially, the more we write the easier it becomes to be honest about our emotions. So treasure your notes app poems. They’re probably not going to win any awards any time soon, but they are a mark of your humanity and your progress, and that is the most important thing.