Early English Devotional Prose and the Female Audience

Early English Devotional Prose and the Female Audience
Author :
Publisher : Univ. of Tennessee Press
Total Pages : 248
Release :
ISBN-10 : 0870496417
ISBN-13 : 9780870496417
Rating : 4/5 (417 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Early English Devotional Prose and the Female Audience by : Elizabeth Ann Robertson

Download or read book Early English Devotional Prose and the Female Audience written by Elizabeth Ann Robertson and published by Univ. of Tennessee Press. This book was released on 1990 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After the NOrman conquest, women and the lower classes became the primary audiences for English, as opposed to Latin or French, literature. Among the works written for female audiences are the hitherto neglected AB texts: three female saints' lives, a tract on virginity, a homily, and a guide for anchoresses. In this lucid, innovative study, Elizabeth Robertson shows that the AB texts were written in an effective experiential style that distinguished them from other spiritual works of the period.Key characteristics of this special style--nonteleological structre, pervasive use of concrete imagery, and thematic focus on the female body--have been viewed by some as hallmarks of women's writing more generally. Combining feminist theory with critical skill and an impressive command of Old and Middle English materials, the author argues, to the contrary, that in the thirteenth-century England this style was created by educated male writers in accord with their beliefs about nature and needs of marginal social groups.Beginning with the history and motivations of female anchorites and surveying medieval philosophy and theology in relation to gender theory, this book offers the first comprehensive analysis of the AB texts and then details their debt to earlier English vernacular works and to the continental theological movements that increasingly emphasized physical experience and matter. The result is an exciting, learned account of the feminization of early English prose.


Early English Devotional Prose and the Female Audience Related Books

Early English Devotional Prose and the Female Audience
Language: en
Pages: 248
Authors: Elizabeth Ann Robertson
Categories: Literary Criticism
Type: BOOK - Published: 1990 - Publisher: Univ. of Tennessee Press

GET EBOOK

After the NOrman conquest, women and the lower classes became the primary audiences for English, as opposed to Latin or French, literature. Among the works writ
Lost Property
Language: en
Pages: 296
Authors: Jennifer Summit
Categories: Language Arts & Disciplines
Type: BOOK - Published: 2000-07 - Publisher: University of Chicago Press

GET EBOOK

The English literary canon is haunted by the figure of the lost woman writer. In our own age, she has been a powerful stimulus for the rediscovery of works writ
The English Prose Treatises of Richard Rolle
Language: en
Pages: 228
Authors: Claire Elizabeth McIlroy
Categories: Foreign Language Study
Type: BOOK - Published: 2004 - Publisher: DS Brewer

GET EBOOK

The author argues that in these devotional works (which appealed to a broad readership in late medieval England) Rolle successfully refines traditional affectiv
The Reproductive Unconscious in Late Medieval and Early Modern England
Language: en
Pages: 154
Authors: Jennifer Wynne Hellwarth
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2013-12-16 - Publisher: Routledge

GET EBOOK

Drawing together social and medical history and literary studies, The Reproductive Unconscious in Late Medieval and Early Modern England studies the social prac
Routledge Revivals: Medieval England (1998)
Language: en
Pages: 949
Authors: Paul E. Szarmach
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2017-07-05 - Publisher: Taylor & Francis

GET EBOOK

First published in 1998, this valuable reference work offers concise, expert answers to questions on all aspects of life and culture in Medieval England, includ