Manchester University Press
1 Negotiating power and pleasure in The Book of Margery Kempe
Abstract
This chapter considers how consensual masochism and performative piety enable Margery Kempe to reclaim her body and evade traditional fifteenth-century power dynamics. Margery navigates away from the non-consensual pain of earthly relationships towards a consensual and empowering devotional masochism with Christ, who serves as her loving Master. Modern Dom/sub dynamics serve as a lens through which the chapter examines Margery’s relationship to God’s power. The chapter details the considerable evidence that Margery links erotics and suffering in her text in ways that resonate with modern BDSM. Her painful penitence and violent fantasies bring her pleasure and fulfilment. Ultimately, Margery’s relationship with God involves an empowering masochism.
Abstract
This chapter considers how consensual masochism and performative piety enable Margery Kempe to reclaim her body and evade traditional fifteenth-century power dynamics. Margery navigates away from the non-consensual pain of earthly relationships towards a consensual and empowering devotional masochism with Christ, who serves as her loving Master. Modern Dom/sub dynamics serve as a lens through which the chapter examines Margery’s relationship to God’s power. The chapter details the considerable evidence that Margery links erotics and suffering in her text in ways that resonate with modern BDSM. Her painful penitence and violent fantasies bring her pleasure and fulfilment. Ultimately, Margery’s relationship with God involves an empowering masochism.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Front Matter i
- Contents v
- List of contributors vii
- Acknowledgements xi
- Introduction 1
- 1 Negotiating power and pleasure in The Book of Margery Kempe 37
- 2 Land of saints and sadists 68
- 3 Failed sadism and masochistic martyrdom in Christine de Pizan’s Livre de la cité des dames 93
- 4 The monastic pleasures of frustrated knowledge 129
- 5 The pains of being pure at heart 156
- 6 Humiliation as penance in some early penitentials 179
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Part II: Courtly and secular (con)texts
- 7 ‘I am not having what she’s having’ 209
- 8 Queer consolation 235
- 9 Ideological sadism or cultural enhancement 267
- 10 Fetishising the past 292
- 11 ‘My warlike grip broke his beating heart’ 325
- 12 Death drive and the maiden 347
- Index 382
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Front Matter i
- Contents v
- List of contributors vii
- Acknowledgements xi
- Introduction 1
- 1 Negotiating power and pleasure in The Book of Margery Kempe 37
- 2 Land of saints and sadists 68
- 3 Failed sadism and masochistic martyrdom in Christine de Pizan’s Livre de la cité des dames 93
- 4 The monastic pleasures of frustrated knowledge 129
- 5 The pains of being pure at heart 156
- 6 Humiliation as penance in some early penitentials 179
-
Part II: Courtly and secular (con)texts
- 7 ‘I am not having what she’s having’ 209
- 8 Queer consolation 235
- 9 Ideological sadism or cultural enhancement 267
- 10 Fetishising the past 292
- 11 ‘My warlike grip broke his beating heart’ 325
- 12 Death drive and the maiden 347
- Index 382
