Title: The discourse of enclosure : representing women in Old English literature /
Authors: Horner, Shari, 1961-
Publisher: State University of New York Press,
Year: 2001
Subjects: English literature History and criticism; Women and literature England History; Feminism and literature England History; Women England History; Enclosure (Monasticism) England History; Women in literature; English literature History and criticism.; Enclosure (Monasticism)
Abstract: "Exploring Old English texts ranging from Beowulf to Aelfric's Lives of Saints, this book examines ways that women's monastic, material, and devotional practices in Anglo-Saxon England shaped literary representations of women and femininity. Horner argues that these representations derive from a "discourse" of female monastic enclosure, based on the increasingly strict rules of cloistered confinement that regulated the female religious body in the early Middle Ages. She shows that the female subjects of much Old English literature are enclosed by many layers - literal and figurative, textual, material, discursive, and spatial - all of which image and reinforce the powerful institutions imposed by the Church on the female body. Though it has long been recognized that medieval religious women were enclosed, and that virginity was highly valued, this book is the first to consider the interrelationships of these two positions - that is, how the material practices of female monasticism inform the textual operations of Old English literature."--Jacket.
Contents: Introduction -- The Discourse of Enclosure: Inscribing the Feminine in Old English Literature -- Looking Into Enclosure in the Old English Female Lyrics -- Voices From the Margins: Women and Textual Enclosure in Beowulf --Textual/Sexual Violence: The Old English Juliana and the Anglo-Saxon Female Reader -- Bodies and Borders: The Hermeneutics of Enclosure in Elfric's lives of Female Saints -- Conclusion -- Christina of Markyate and Legacies of Enclosure -- Bibliography -- Index.