Gender, poetry, and the form of thought in later medieval literature : essays in honor of Elizabeth A. Robertson

Over the course of her career, Elizabeth Robertson has pursued innovative scholarship that investigates the overlapping domains of medieval philosophy, literature, and gender studies. This collection of essays, dedicated to her work, examines gender as a construct of language, a mode of embodiment, and a critical framework for thinking about the past. Its eleven contributors approach the figure of the gendered body in medieval English writing along several axes: poetic, philosophical, material-textual, and historical. The volume focuses on the ways that the medieval body becomes a site of inquiry and agency, whether in the form of the idealized feminine body of secular and religious lyric, the sexually permissive and permeable body of fabliau, or the intercessory body of religious devotional writing. The essays span a broad range of medieval literary works, from the lais of Marie de France to Pearl to Piers Plowman and the poetry of Geoffrey Chaucer, and a broad range of methodological approaches, from philosophy to affect and manuscript studies. Taken together, they celebrate the scholarly career of Elizabeth Robertson while also presenting a coherent and multifaceted investigation of the intersections of gender and medieval literary practice. Cover 1 Half Title 2 Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Contents 6 Illustrations 8 Introduction: The Form of Thought 10 Notes 17 Bibliography 17 Part I: Form and Knowing: Part I 20 Chapter 1: Chaucerian Insomnia and the Hospitality of Sleeplessness in Late Medieval Dream Visions 22 Sleeping and Not Sleeping in the Later Middle Ages 24 Waking Sleep in The Book of the Duchess 27 Swooning and Dreaming in the Boke of Cupide 33 Conclusion 37 Notes 38 Bibliography 40 Chapter 2: Cloudy Thoughts: Cognition and Affect in Troilus and Criseyde 44 Feeling with Criseyde 47 “Lady Bright” and “Cloudy Fortune” 51 “I noot never what . . .” 58 Conclusion 60 Notes 61 Bibliography 64 Chapter 3: Voluntarism and the Self in Piers Plowman 66 Some Varieties of Voluntarism 67 Intellectualism and Its Rivals 68 The Will as Locus of the Self 71 Higher and Lower Will 74 Will’s Journey 76 Notes 80 Bibliography 83 Chapter 4: Margery Kempe and the Paradoxical Presence of God 86 Notes 102 Bibliography 106 Part II: Material Poetics: Part II 108 Chapter 5: Both “Gostly Sense” and “Amerouse Sentensce”: The Nightingale’s Resurrection as Hybrid Text 110 Appendix 124 The Nightingale Verse Proem 124 (1) 124 (2) 124 (3) 124 (4) 125 (5) 125 (6) 125 Notes 126 Bibliography 128 Chapter 6: Middle English Verse Acrostics: A Survey 132 Notes 145 Bibliography 151 Chapter 7: The Landscapes of Pearl: Poetry and Theology 156 Notes 173 Bibliography 175 Part III: Historicizing Gender: Part III 178 Chapter 8: Disrupting Medieval Marriage in Anglo-Norman Women’s Writing: Clemence of Barking’s Life of Saint Catherine, Marie’s Life of Saint Audrey, and Marie de France’s Eliduc 180 Martyrdom and Spiritual Community in The Life of Saint Catherine 181 Chastity, Land, and Power: The Life of Saint Audrey 186 Marie de France’s Eliduc: The Marriage Debt Transformed 190 Beyond Marriage: Women’s Autonomy and Community in Medieval Narrative 196 Notes 197 Bibliography 199 Chapter 9: Three Medieval Visitors to Rome and the Women They Found There 202 Master Gregorius Finds a Goddess 203 John Capgrave Finds Exemplary Women 206 Margery Kempe Finds Herself 211 Notes 216 Bibliography 218 Chapter 10: The Not Yet Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale 220 I 221 II 225 III 229 IV 229 Notes 234 Bibliography 237 Index 242 Contributors 248 "Dedicated to the scholarship of Elizabeth Robertson, Gender, Poetry, and the Form of Thought in Later Medieval Literature is a collection of essays that explore how gender in medieval English literature intersects with philosophy, poetry, history, and religion"-- Provided by publisher