Misogyny, subjectivity, and crisis in English romance and allegory, 1350--1600.

Format:

Book

Thesis/Dissertation

Author/Creator:

Knepper, Janet Kay.

Contributor:

University of Pennsylvania.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English literature.

Irish literature.

British literature.

Theater.

Literature, Medieval.

0297.

0465.

0593.

Local Subjects:

0297.

0465.

0593.

Physical Description:

271 pages

Contained In:

Dissertation Abstracts International 61-10A.

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

text file

Summary:

Misogyny was always present in Medieval Culture, but in the late Middle Ages, it became more virulent, the result, according to scholars, of the many crises of the fourteenth century: plague, revolt, schism, war. In addition, the late fourteenth century, I argue, saw the development of the interiorized subject, which occurred in part as a result of these crises. This dissertation examines how misogyny is used to articulate sociocultural crises and the problematics of interiorized subjectivity. In this study of how women are made scapegoats for social ills, fears, and crises, I employ contemporary feminist and psychoanalytic theory, historical documents, the work of historians, and literary texts read as both 'literature' and as cultural documents. I acknowledge some of the larger ideologies that inform culture so that I can discuss the problems and crises that I see the literary texts as enacting. Accordingly, I study late medieval criminal law, the political crises of the late fourteenth century, and early humanist theories on educational reform. In the literary texts I examine, a female figure's representation is produced, or at least haunted by, the discourses of misogyny that formed the dominant ideology on gender in the Middle Ages. I show that misogynist representations of women are used to articulate the threat of the interiorized subject in the Stanzaic Morte Arthur, of cultural and economic change in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and of misuse of law in Piers Plowman. I then examine how misogynist representations of women articulate the problems of leisure and desire in the Tudor 'Wit' plays, in a culture that increasingly values work and social advancement. I conclude that the discourse of misogyny not only articulates social problems, but also underwrites a subjectivity-effect for the female characters that threatens male hegemonic security.

Notes:

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 61-10, Section: A, page: 3989.

Supervisor: David J. Wallace.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Pennsylvania, 2000.

Local Notes:

School code: 0175.

ISBN:

9780599970052

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.