The discourse of enclosure : representing women in Old English literature / by Shari Horner.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Horner, Shari, 1961- author.

Series:

SUNY series in medieval studies

SUNY series in medieval studies The discourse of enclosure

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Women and literature--England--History--To 1500.

Women and literature.

Women--England--History--Middle Ages, 500-1500.

Women.

Feminism and literature--England--History--To 1500.

Feminism and literature.

English literature--Old English, ca. 450-1100--History and criticism.

English literature.

Women in literature.

Enclosure (Monasticism).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (viii, 207 p. )

Place of Publication:

Albany, New York : State University of New York Press, [2001]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

"Exploring Old English texts ranging from Beowulf to Aelfric's Lives of Saints, this book examines ways that women's monastic, material, and devotional practices in Anglo-Saxon England shaped literary representations of women and femininity. Horner argues that these representations derive from a "discourse" of female monastic enclosure, based on the increasingly strict rules of cloistered confinement that regulated the female religious body in the early Middle Ages. She shows that the female subjects of much Old English literature are enclosed by many layers - literal and figurative, textual, material, discursive, and spatial - all of which image and reinforce the powerful institutions imposed by the Church on the female body. Though it has long been recognized that medieval religious women were enclosed, and that virginity was highly valued, this book is the first to consider the interrelationships of these two positions - that is, how the material practices of female monasticism inform the textual operations of Old English literature."--Jacket.

Contents:

Introduction

The Discourse of Enclosure: Inscribing the Feminine in Old English Literature

Looking Into Enclosure in the Old English Female Lyrics

Voices From the Margins: Women and Textual Enclosure in Beowulf

Textual/Sexual Violence: The Old English Juliana and the Anglo-Saxon Female Reader

Bodies and Borders: The Hermeneutics of Enclosure in Elfric's lives of Female Saints

Conclusion

Christina of Markyate and Legacies of Enclosure

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references (pages [187]-202) and index.

ISBN:

9780791490440

0791490440