The Literary Subversions of Medieval Women
Chance, Jane
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BOOK SUMMARY
This study of medieval women as postcolonial writers defines the literary strategies of subversion by which they authorized their alterity within the dominant tradition. To dismantle a colonizing culture, they made public the private feminine space alloca
Submit a book reviewBOOK SYNOPSIS
This study of medieval women as postcolonial writers defines the literary strategies of subversion by which they authorized their alterity within the dominant tradition. To dismantle a colonizing culture, they made public the private feminine space allocated by gender difference: they constructed unhomely spaces. They inverted gender roles of characters to valorize the female; they created alternate idealized feminist societies and cultures, or utopias, through fantasy; and they legitimized female trivialitythe homely female spaceto provide autonomy. While these methodologies often overlapped in practice, they illustrate how cultures impinge on languages to create what Deleuze and Guattari have identified as a minor literature, specifically for women as dis-placed. Women writers discussed include Hrotsvit of Gandersheim, Hildegard of Bingen, Marie de France, Marguerite Porete, Catherine of Siena, Margery Kempe, Julian of Norwich, and Christine de Pizan.
AUTHOR BIO
Jane Chance, Professor of English and Director, Medieval Studies Program and Workshop, at Rice University, has taught medieval literature for thirty-six years. Founding President of the Consortium for the Teaching of the Middle Ages, Inc. (TEAMS), she has published twenty-one books and nearly a hundred articles and reviews, on medieval women, mythography, Middle English literature, and modern medievalism.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
The Discursive Strategies of the Marginalized * St. Agnes and the Emperors Daughter in Hrotsvit of Gandersheim: Feminizing the Founding of the Early Roman Church * Marie de France Versus King Arthur: Lanvals Gender Inversion as Breton Subversion * Marguerite Poretes Annihilation of the Character Reason in Her Fantasy of an Inverted Church * Unhomely Margery Kempe and St. Catherine of Siena: Comownycacyon and Conversacyon as Homily * Toward a Minor Literature: Julian of Norwichs Annihilation of Original Sin
BOOK REVIEWS
Chance has been a pioneer of feminist literary criticism on the Middle Ages ever since her book, Woman as Hero in Old English Literature, first appeared in the mid-1980s. Some two dozen books later, in the course of a distinguished career, Chance has accumulated a reputation not only for feminist scholarship, but also for her thoughtful and generous mentoring of two generations of women medievalists. The Literary Subversions of Medieval Women is the culmination of Chance's scholarship as a feminist medievalist, and the jewel in her crown.--Geraldine Heng, Director of Medieval Studies at the University of Texas at Austin; Author of Empire of Magic: Medieval Romance and the Politics of Cultural Fantasy (2003)
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"Chances study is an incisive, eloquent, and erudite survey of the wide-ranging strategies which medieval women writers in Latin, French, German, and Italian deployed to turn the tables on the misogynist literary culture of their time, to restore in effect the abused ideal of a universal republic of letters. It combines the latest scholarship in critical and cultural studies, especially post-colonialist and feminist theory, with a sweeping, often breath-taking command of more traditional medievalist scholarship. It opens up, in a pioneering fashion, a new dialogue about women writers in medieval (and also modern) culture. One might not always agree with Chance nor does she expect this response but no one can fail to be stimulated by this deeply provocative study."--Jeff Richards, Professor of Romance Literatures, University of Wuppertal
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Chance has long been recognized as a leading scholar of the Middle Ages. This book is an exceptional achievement by a medievalist at the top of her game. Her work reinvigorates the study of important medieval women writers like Hrotsvit of Gandersheim, Marie de France, Marguerite Porete, Margery Kempe, and Julian of Norwich, suggesting exciting new directions for the discipline of medieval studies.--Laurie Finke, Professor of Womens and Gender Studies, Kenyon College
FOR RELATED BOOKS
Literary Criticism Books :: Women Authors Books
Literary Criticism Books :: Medieval Books
MORE BOOK INFO
ISBN: 1403969108
ISBN(13-digit): 9781403969101
Dewey Decimal: 809/.9335220902
Library of Congress: 2007060090
Book Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Language: ENG
No. of Pages: 215
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