Module Identifier |
ENM1220 |
Module Title |
WOMEN'S WRITING IN THE LATER MIDDLE AGES |
Academic Year |
2005/2006 |
Co-ordinator |
To Be Arranged |
Semester |
Semester 1 |
Other staff |
Professor Diane Watt |
Course delivery |
Seminars / Tutorials | 5 x 2-hour seminars |
Assessment |
Assessment Type | Assessment Length/Details | Proportion |
Semester Assessment | Essay: 1 x 5,000 word essay | |
Supplementary Assessment | Resubmit any failed elements and/or make good any missing elements. Where this involves re-submission of work, a new topic must be selected. | |
|
Aims
Brief description
Recent scholarship has recovered a great deal of previously neglected medieval women's writing. Spiritual texts (often of an autobiographical nature) make up perhaps three quarters of this material, but some early secular works also exist. The aim of this module is not only to introduce a selection of early women's literature, but also to examine the often problematic circumstances of its production. The whole spectrum of writing will be considered, from personal meditations and prayers to biographies and romances. Topics covered will include: representations of women; the anti-feminist tradition and defences of women; women's exclusion from history and from the literary canon; definitions of 'women's writing'; women's style; representations and self-representations of women; the anti-feminist tradition and defences of women; women and religion; feminine piety; and women in medieval society.
Content
SEMINAR PROGRAMME
1. Women's Literary History: the Medieval Phase
-
Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, the Norton Anthology of Literature by Women (Introduction to the section on the Middle Ages and Renaissance)
-
Virginia Woolf, "A Room of One's Own"
-
Janet Todd, "Feminist Literary History" (Chapter 1)
-
Alexandra Barratt, "Women's Writing in Middle English" (Introduction).
2. A Cell of One's Own
-
"The Life of Christina of Markyate"
-
The St Albans Psalter
3. Women Writing Fiction
-
Marie de France's "Lais", "Fables" and "St Alban's Psalter"
4. Who's Afraid of Margery Kempe?
-
Julian of Norwich: "A Revelation of Love"
-
"The Book of Margery Kempe"
-
"A Revelation of Purgatory"
5. Do Letters Have Authors?
Reading Lists
Books
** Should Be Purchased
Alexandra Barratt (ed.) (1992) Women's Writing in Middle English
London: Longman Annotated Texts 058206192X
Burgess, Glyn S and Keith Busby, trans (1986) The Lais of Marie de Frnace
Penguin
Speigel, Harriet (1987) Marie de Frnace: Fables
University of Toronto Press
Talbot, C. H. (May 1998) The Life of Christina of Markyate:A twelfth century recluse
0802082025 (Trade Paper)Active Record
Watt, Diane (2004.) The Paston women :selected letters /translated from the Middle English with intorduction notes and interpretive essay [by] Diane Watt.
1843840243
Kempe, Margery. (1985.) The book of Margery Kempe /translated by B.A. Windeatt.
0140432515
Notes
This module is at CQFW Level 7