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Women's Power in Late Medieval Romance
Language:
English
Published/Copyright:
2011
About this book
A reading of how women's power is asserted and demonstrated in the popular medieval genre of romance.
The cultural and social power of women in the Middle Ages is perhaps hard to trace, with evidence for it scarce. This book argues that medieval romances provide a central, but under-explored, source for and examples of such authority. By reassessing the influence exerted by female characters, in a spectrum that includes both intellectual and chivalric aid and, in some cases, patronage, it considers how they functioned as models of cultural, intellectual, and social authority in medieval literary texts. In addition to examples set by the family connections, socio-political networks, and textual communities in which they lived, this study argues that women also learned methods of influence from the books they read. In texts like Troilus and Criseyde and Partonope of Blois, the female reader encounters an explicit demonstration of how a woman`s intellectual and financial resources can be used. The literary representations of women's cultural power expose a continuum of influence from non-material effects to material sway in the medieval patronage system, an influence often unacknowledged in strictly historical and extra-literary sources.
Amy N. Vines is Assistant Professor in the Department of English, University of North Carolina-Greensboro.
The cultural and social power of women in the Middle Ages is perhaps hard to trace, with evidence for it scarce. This book argues that medieval romances provide a central, but under-explored, source for and examples of such authority. By reassessing the influence exerted by female characters, in a spectrum that includes both intellectual and chivalric aid and, in some cases, patronage, it considers how they functioned as models of cultural, intellectual, and social authority in medieval literary texts. In addition to examples set by the family connections, socio-political networks, and textual communities in which they lived, this study argues that women also learned methods of influence from the books they read. In texts like Troilus and Criseyde and Partonope of Blois, the female reader encounters an explicit demonstration of how a woman`s intellectual and financial resources can be used. The literary representations of women's cultural power expose a continuum of influence from non-material effects to material sway in the medieval patronage system, an influence often unacknowledged in strictly historical and extra-literary sources.
Amy N. Vines is Assistant Professor in the Department of English, University of North Carolina-Greensboro.
Topics
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Frontmatter
i -
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Contents
vii -
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List of Illustrations
viii -
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Acknowledgements
ix -
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Abbreviations
xi -
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Introduction
1 -
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1. Prophecy as Social Influence: Cassandra, Anne Neville and the Corpus Christi Manuscript of Troilus and Criseyde
17 -
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2. The Science of Female Power in John Metham’s Amoryus and Cleopes
53 -
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3. A Woman’s “Crafte” Sexual and Chivalric Patronage in Partonope of Blois
85 -
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4. Creative Revisions: Competing Figures of the Patroness in Thomas Chestre’s Sir Launfal
115 -
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Conclusion
141 -
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Bibliography
149 -
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Index
163
Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
January 23, 2024
eBook ISBN:
9781846157837
Original publisher:
D.S.Brewer
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook ISBN:
9781846157837
Keywords for this book
Medieval Romance; Women's Power; Cultural Authority; Intellectual Influence; Chivalric Aid; Patronage; Troilus and Criseyde; Partonope of Blois; Cultural Power; Material Sway; Patronage System
Audience(s) for this book
For an expert adult audience, including professional development and academic research
