EN 877.01 Medieval Women Writers (Spring 2008-2009: 3)
This course examines a wide range of female-authored texts from the Middle
Ages, ranging in date from the eighth to the fifteenth centuries. This body
of work is remarkable for its size, given the limitations on women's writing,
and its range: we will read the famous letters of Abelard and Heloïse, biography,
autobiography, saints' lives, romances, fables, love poetry, mystical and
visionary literature, utopian literature, political theory, and the correspondence
of aristocratic women in the late Middle Ages. One of the major problems
we will confront is the nature of women's writing. Can we find essential
characteristics of female-authored texts, can we locate a female literary
ethos in particular genres, or are we encountering a fortuitous selection
of 'typical' medieval literature? Much of our time will be spent on how
women viewed themselves and their own bodies. Female (and male) bodies were
constrained by a complicated network of social, economic, and political
forces, and these intersected with activities that we think of as historical
(e.g., the nature of women's work), literary (e.g., the function and style
of women's poetry), and religious (the tradition of female mysticism). Mysticism
is especially important to medieval women's writing, not only because of
the large number of female-authored mystical and visionary texts, but because
in many cases it attempts to articulate important relationships between
female experience, female identity, and the divine. To help us approach
these questions, we will read not only the primary sources and historical
secondary sources, but also some feminist and gender theory. Writers will
include Marie de France, Hildegard of Bingen, Heloïse, the female troubadours,
Bridget of Sweden, the Beguines, Na Prous Boneta, Marguerite Porete, Julian
of Norwich, Margery Kempe, the Paston women, Christine de Pizan, and Joan
of Arc. All non-English texts will be read in modern English translation.
Robert Stanton
Last Updated: 30-JAN-08