Crossing the bridge
Subtitle: comparative essays on medieval European and Heian Japanese women writers
By: edited by Barbara Stevenson and Cynthia Ho.
Contributors: Stevenson, Barbara, 1957-; Ho, Cynthia O. 1947-
Edition: 1st ed.
Series: The new Middle Ages; New Middle Ages (Palgrave (Firm))
Publisher: Palgrave
Published: 2000
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 234
Subjects: Literature, Medieval -- Women authors -- History and criticism.; Japanese literature -- Heian period, 794-1185 -- History and criticism.; Japanese literature -- Women authors -- History and criticism.; Women and literature -- Europe -- History -- To 1500.; Women and literature -- Japan -- History -- To 1500.
Description: "Crossing the Bridge is a collection of essays that compares similar women writers of medieval Europe and Heian Japan. This study not only provides essential information on women and writing but, more important, it explores meaningful connections between two cultures. In both cultures, a combination of tensions involving language and genre created an opportunity for women writers.

Taken together, the essays in this collection suggest the similar, and also strikingly dissimilar, strategies of women working within medieval courtly cultures to mitigate traditional patriarchal constraints. Many of the works and authors examined in the book focus on the courtly aspects of medieval European and Heian culture in which art, literature, and love are the highest pursuits. For both, living is itself art.

This text supplies instructors and students of world literature, women's studies, and medieval literature with essential, useful analysis in an area that previously has been the territory of specialists."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [213]-227) and index.
Table of contents: title: Speaking for : surrogates and the Tale of the Genji / H. Richard Okada; title: Re-visioning the widow Christine de Pizan / Barbara Stevenson; title: On becoming ukifune : autobiographical heroines in Heian and Kamakura literature / Joshua S. Mostow; title: Vox matris : the influence of St. Birgitta's Revelations on The book of Margery Kempe / Nanda Hopenwasser and Signe Wegener; title: The voice of the court woman poet / S. Lea Millay; title: Romantic entreaty in The Kagerō diary and The letters of Abelard and Heloise / John R. Wallace; title: Words alone cannot express : epistles in Marie de France and Murasaki Shikubu / Cynthia Ho; title: "True lovers" : love and irony in Murasaki Shikubu and Christine de Pizan / Carol E. Harding; title: Reclaiming the self through silence : The Riverside Counselor's stories and the Lais of Marie de France / Marco D. Roman; title: The lady in the garden : subjects and objects in an ideal world / Mara Miller.