Carolyn
Dinshaw, David Wallace , eds.
The Cambridge Companion to Medieval
Women's
Writing.
Cambridge University Press, May 2003.
312pp.
Publisher's
recommended price
Hardback ISBN
052179188X, £45.00
Paperback 0521796385, £15.95
The
Cambridge
Companion to Medieval Women's Writing seeks to recover the lives
and
particular experiences of medieval women by concentrating on various
kinds
of texts: the texts they wrote themselves as well as texts that
attempted
to shape, limit, or expand their lives. The first section investigates
the roles traditionally assigned to medieval women (as virgins, widows,
and wives); it also considers female childhood and relations between
women.
The second section explores social spaces, including textuality itself:
for every surviving medieval manuscript bespeaks collaborative effort.
It considers women as authors, as anchoresses 'dead to the world', and
as preachers and teachers in the world (staking claims to authority
without
entering a pulpit. The final section considers the lives and writings
of
remarkable women, including Marie de France, Heloise, Joan of Arc,
Julian
of Norwich, Margery Kempe, and female lyricists and romancers whose
names
are lost, but whose texts survive.
Contents:
Contributors; Chronology Chris Africa; Introduction
Carolyn
Dinshaw and David Wallace; Part I. Estates of Women: 1. Female
Childhoods
Daniel T. Kline; 2. Virginity Ruth Evans; 3. Marriage
Dyan
Elliott; 4. Widows Barbara Hanawalt; 5. Between Women
Karma
Lochrie; Part II. Texts and Other Spaces: 6. Women and authorship
Jennifer Summit; 7. Enclosure Christopher Cannon; 8. At
home;
out of the house Sarah Salih; 9. Beneath the pulpit Alcuin
Blamires;
Section III. Medieval Women: 10. Heloise Christopher Baswell;
11. Marie
de France Roberta L. Krueger; 12. The Roman de la Rose,
Christine
de Pizan, and the Querelles des Femmes David F. Hult; 13. Lyrics
and romances Sarah McNamer; 14. Julian of Norwich Nicholas
Watson;
15. Margery Kempe Carolyn Dinshaw; 16. Continental women
mystics
and English readers Alexandra Barratt; 17. Joan of Arc
Nadia
Margolis; Guide to further reading.
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