Constructions of Feminine Identity in the Catholic Tradition: Inventing Women (Studies in Medieval Literature)

Constructions of Feminine Identity in the Catholic Tradition examines the ways in which late classical medieval women's writings serve as a means of emphasizing both faith and social identity within a distinctly Christian, and later Catholic, tradition, which remains a major part of the understanding of faith and the self. Flavin focuses on key texts from the lives of desert saints and the Passio Perpetua to the autobiographies of Counter-Reformation women like Teresa of �vila to illustrate the connections between the self and the divine. Christopher M. Flavin examines the ways in which late classical medieval women's writings serve as a means of emphasizing both faith and social identity within a distinctly Christian, and later Catholic, tradition, which remains a major part of the understanding of faith and the self. Flavin focuses on key texts from the lives of desert saints and the Passio Perpetua to the autobiographies of Counter-Reformation women like Teresa of Ávila to illustrate the connections between the self and the divine. Contents Acknowledgments Introduction 1 Women Writing or Writing About Women? 2 (En)Gendering Texts 3 Perpetua and Her Daughters 4 Constructing a New Self 5 Heloise and the Rhetoric of the Self 6 “Texts Without Bodies, Churches Without Windows” 7 Reinvigorated Tradition Conclusion Bibliography Index About the Author Examining texts from the beginning of the Christian era through the Renaissance, the author demonstrates that the performative role of women writers is critical to understanding the place of the individual in the broader Catholic intellectual tradition in the Anglophone world.