The power of a woman's voice in medieval and early modern literatures : new approaches to German and European women writers and to violence against women in premodern times / Albrecht Classen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Classen, Albrecht.

Series:

Fundamentals of medieval and early modern culture ; 1

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Literature, Medieval--Women authors--History and criticism.

Literature, Medieval.

Literature--Women authors--History and criticism.

Literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (460 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berlin ; New York : Walter de Gruyter, c2007.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Die Untersuchung unterzieht die landläufige Forschungsmeinung, Frauen im Mittelalter hätten unter starker Misogynie zu leiden gehabt und sich nur selten in der Öffentlichkeit zu Wort melden können, einer kritischen Analyse. In zehn Kapiteln kommen verschiedene Aspekte und Autor/innen zu Wort, wobei zunächst nach der Beurteilung von Gewalt gegen Frauen auch in Texten männlicher Autoren (Hartmann von Aue, Gottfried von Straßburg, Wolfram von Eschenbach) gefragt wird, die zwar Gewaltphänomene beschreiben, diese aber äußerst kritisch beurteilen. Weiterhin wird gezeigt, inwieweit Frauen in unterschiedlichen Genres eine eigenständige Identität entwickelten und sich in der Öffentlichkeit als Autoritäten positionieren konnten: Mystische Texte von Hildegard von Bingen, Marie de France und Margery Kempe, der didaktische Text Winsbeckin, die in südwestdeutschen Klöstern entstandenen Schwesternbücher, aber auch quasi-historische Dokumente wie die Aufzeichnungen der Helene Kottanner oder das Kochbuch Anna Weckerins belegen, dass erheblich mehr Frauen als bisher angenommen im Rampenlicht der Öffentlichkeit standen und sich mit ihren intellektuellen wie literarischen Leistungen selbstbewusst zu behaupten verstanden.

The study takes the received view among scholars that women in the Middle Ages were faced with sustained misogyny and that their voices were seldom heard in public and subjects it to a critical analysis. The ten chapters deal with various aspects of the question, and the voices of a variety of authors - both female and male - are heard. The study opens with an enquiry into violence against women, including in texts by male writers (Hartmann von Aue, Gottfried von Straßburg, Wolfram von Eschenbach) which indeed describe instances of violence, but adopt an extremely critical stance towards them. It then proceeds to show how women were able to develop an independent identity in various genres and could present themselves as authorities in the public eye. Mystic texts by Hildegard of Bingen, Marie de France and Margery Kempe, the medieval conduct poem known as Die Winsbeckin, the Devout Books of Sisters composed in convents in South-West Germany, but also quasi-historical documents such as the memoirs of Helene Kottaner or Anna Weckerin's cookery book, demonstrate that far more women were in the public gaze than had hitherto been assumed and that they possessed the self-confidence to establish their positions with their intellectual and their literary achievements.

Contents:

Front matter

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter One. Violence to Women, Women's Rights, and Their Defenders in Medieval German Literature

Chapter Two. Women Speak up at the Medieval Court: Gender Roles and Public Influence in Hartmann von Aue's Erec and Gottfried von Strassburg's Tristan and Isolde

Chapter Three. Women's Secular and Spiritual Power in the Middle Ages. Two Case Studies: Hildegard von Bingen and Marie de France

Chapter Four. Gender Crossing, Spiritual Transgression, and the Epistemological Experience of the Divine in Mystical Discourse: Hildegard von Bingen

Chapter Five. The Winsbeckin - Female Discourse or Male Projection? New Questions to a Middle High German Gendered Didactic Text in Comparison with Christine de Pizan. What do we make out of a female voice within a male dominated textual genre?

Chapter Six. Domestic Violence in Medieval and Early-Modern German, French, Italian, and English Literature (Marie de France, Boccaccio, and Geoffrey Chaucer)

Chapter Seven. Reading, Listening, and Writing Communities in Late Medieval Women's Dominican Convents. The Mystical Drive Toward the Word. The Testimony of the Sisterbooks

Chapter Eight. Margery Kempe as a Writer: A Woman's Voice in the Mystical and Literary Discourse

Chapter Nine. Helene Kottanner: A Fifteenth-Century Eye-Witness Turned Author. The Earliest Medieval Memoirs by a German Woman Writer

Chapter Ten. Sixteenth-Century Cookbooks, Artes Literature, and Female Voices: Anna Weckerin (Keller) and Sabina Welser

Conclusion

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. [387]-447) and index.

ISBN:

9783110897777

3110897776

OCLC:

811407756