Violent Women and the Blurring of Gender in some Medieval Narratives
-
Tovi Bibring
Abstract
This chapter focuses on literary depictions of women’s attempts to challenge the phallocentric patriarchal society and resist the masculine established order by displaying violent or even murderous behavior toward men in French medieval literature. I contend that such brutal scenes were often cloaked as comic narratives and were perceived by the readers as nothing more than fiction - literary events that would never be seen in reality. I discuss the blurred boundaries between masculine and feminine behavior as they are dealt with in the twelfth-century romance Cligès by Chrétien de Troyes, Fénice’s fausse mort, Lai d’Iguanré, by Renaut, and the Hebrew Tale of Old Bearded Achbor by Yaakov Ben Elazar.
Abstract
This chapter focuses on literary depictions of women’s attempts to challenge the phallocentric patriarchal society and resist the masculine established order by displaying violent or even murderous behavior toward men in French medieval literature. I contend that such brutal scenes were often cloaked as comic narratives and were perceived by the readers as nothing more than fiction - literary events that would never be seen in reality. I discuss the blurred boundaries between masculine and feminine behavior as they are dealt with in the twelfth-century romance Cligès by Chrétien de Troyes, Fénice’s fausse mort, Lai d’Iguanré, by Renaut, and the Hebrew Tale of Old Bearded Achbor by Yaakov Ben Elazar.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Acknowledgements V
- Table of Contents VII
- Blurred Boundaries in Pre-Modern Texts and Images: Aspects of Audiences and Readers-Viewers Responses 1
- The Sacred and the Profane in German Courtly Romances and Late Medieval Verse Narratives: With an Emphasis on Ulrich Bonerius and Heinrich Kaufringer 15
- The Poetic and Ideological Blurring of Boundaries in the Jewish Book of Ethics Orḥot Ṣaddiqim 41
- Laughing at Death: Blurred Boundaries in Giotto’s Last Judgment 57
- The Popular in Service of the Sacred: The Sculpted Musicians of Santiago de Compostela 79
- Image and Legend of Saint Margaret as an Aid in Childbirth Rituals 101
- Violent Women and the Blurring of Gender in some Medieval Narratives 125
- On the Heavenly and the Earthly, the Secular as Sacred – A New Reading of Medieval Hebrew Fables 145
- The Secular and the Sacred in a Bifolio from Louis of Laval’s Book of Hours and Its Spiritual Use 165
- Between Psalter and “Mirrors for Princes”: On the Moral and Didactic Messages in BL Cotton MS Domitian A XVII 185
- Visual and Textual Authority: Reading Chevalier in Manuscripts of La Vie des pères 205
- Aspects of Italian and Flemish Identity in Relation to Book Illumination: Reception of Devotional and Antiquarian Ideas through Depictions of Jewelry 229
- List of Illustrations 249
- Notes on Contributors 253
- Index 255
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Acknowledgements V
- Table of Contents VII
- Blurred Boundaries in Pre-Modern Texts and Images: Aspects of Audiences and Readers-Viewers Responses 1
- The Sacred and the Profane in German Courtly Romances and Late Medieval Verse Narratives: With an Emphasis on Ulrich Bonerius and Heinrich Kaufringer 15
- The Poetic and Ideological Blurring of Boundaries in the Jewish Book of Ethics Orḥot Ṣaddiqim 41
- Laughing at Death: Blurred Boundaries in Giotto’s Last Judgment 57
- The Popular in Service of the Sacred: The Sculpted Musicians of Santiago de Compostela 79
- Image and Legend of Saint Margaret as an Aid in Childbirth Rituals 101
- Violent Women and the Blurring of Gender in some Medieval Narratives 125
- On the Heavenly and the Earthly, the Secular as Sacred – A New Reading of Medieval Hebrew Fables 145
- The Secular and the Sacred in a Bifolio from Louis of Laval’s Book of Hours and Its Spiritual Use 165
- Between Psalter and “Mirrors for Princes”: On the Moral and Didactic Messages in BL Cotton MS Domitian A XVII 185
- Visual and Textual Authority: Reading Chevalier in Manuscripts of La Vie des pères 205
- Aspects of Italian and Flemish Identity in Relation to Book Illumination: Reception of Devotional and Antiquarian Ideas through Depictions of Jewelry 229
- List of Illustrations 249
- Notes on Contributors 253
- Index 255
