Performing women in the middle ages : sex, gender, and the Iberian lyric / Denise K. Filios.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Filios, Denise K.

Series:

New Middle Ages (Palgrave Macmillan (Firm))

The New Middle Ages

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Spanish poetry--To 1500--History and criticism.

Spanish poetry.

Portuguese poetry--To 1500--History and criticism.

Portuguese poetry.

Women in literature.

Sex role in literature.

Identity (Psychology) in literature.

Impersonation.

Physical Description:

261 pages ; 22 cm.

Place of Publication:

New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

Summary:

Performing Women in the Middle Ages approaches medieval lyric poetry through the lens of gender and performance theory and demonstrates how comic-obscene and comic-erotic songs put identity into play, including sexuality, gender, rank, and social status. Denise K. Filios draws on modern ethnographic and performance studies to fill gaps in the medieval written record, reconstructing lyric performances, exploring how women performed themselves as poetic characters ventriloquized by male poets, and examining how men impersonated female characters. Many of the Galician-Portuguese and Castilian poems she analyzes are available here in English for the first time. This study also explores the cultural context of these songs, including the sites within which they were sung/set and the underlying erotic connotations that inform these comic-obscene and comic-erotic songs.

Contents:

Introduction: Female Voices in the Medieval Lyric 1

1 Performing Women in Medieval Iberian Poetic Spectacles: History and Theory 9

2 Soldadeiras' Deviant Performances and Poets' Counterposes: Courtly Play in the Cantigas d'escarnho e de mal dizer 33

3 Negotiating Worth and Selling Sex: Panaderas as Marketplace Orators 83

4 Monstrosity in the Mountains, Courtesy at Court: Contesting Space in Poems on Serranas 129

Conclusion: Playing with Identity in Lyric Performances 179.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [237]-253) and index.

ISBN:

140396730X

OCLC:

55729825

Online:

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