Women and Magic in Medieval Romance
Jane Elizabeth Bonsall
Belletristik / Essays, Feuilleton, Literaturkritik, Interviews
Beschreibung
Explores the conventions and contradictions inherent in archetypes of magical femininity - from loathly ladies to monstrous mothers - in a range of popular late medieval English romances.
The female characters in Middle English romances with particular power and agency are often portrayed as supernatural, possessing either magical abilities or identities. This book argues that a genre-focused reading of these supernatural women reveals romance's strategies for working through and articulating anxieties about the changing world of the late medieval period, as well as exposing their contemporary audiences' unexpectedly flexible attitudes toward feminine authority and moral ambiguity.
It explores five distinct types of magical femininity: the
Tristan tradition's marvelously gifted healers; the Muslim princess in
Bevis of Hampton; the endlessly wealthy fairy imagined by
Sir Launfal and
Partonope of Blois; the monster-mother Melusine; and Morgan le Fay, the prototypical witch. By tracking the way each type first establishes then complicates generic patterns, this study highlights the tension between romance's persistent fascination with feminine power, and its simultaneous reiteration of the social and generic bounds on women's agency and authority. Interrogating generic expectations from an intersectional feminist perspective, it makes a case for a recuperative re-reading of romance, one that asks us to revise our assumptions about the potentialities of women's power in the medieval imaginary.
Kundenbewertungen
Magical Femininity, Tristan Tradition, Feminine Authority, Medieval Romance, Middle English, Intersectional Feminism, Fairy Wealth, Supernatural Women, Muslim Princess, Melusine, Morgan le Fay, Monster-Mother