The Mutable Glass
The Mutable Glass

Author: Herbert Grabes

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1982

Total Pages: 434

ISBN-13: 0521222036

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A comprehensive survey of mirror-imagery in English literature from the thirteenth to the end of the seventeenth century.

Male Authors, Female Readers
Male Authors, Female Readers

Author: Anne Clark Bartlett

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2018-10-18

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 1501722085

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"Holy men despise women...and view them as foul and sticking dirt in the road," asserst the male author of the fifteenth-century Book to a Mother. Middle English devotional writings reflect shades of mysogony ranging from the blatant to the subtle, yet these texts were among the most popular literature know to the earliest generation of English women readers. In the first book to examine this paradox, Anne Clark Bartlett considers why medieval women enjoyed such male-authored works as Speculum Devotorum, The Tree, The Twelve Fruits of the Holy Ghost, and Contemplations on the Dread and Love of God. Demonstrating that these texts actually provided alternative—and more appealing—notions of gender than those authorized by the Church, Bartlett redefines women's participation in medieval culture in terms of far greater agency and empowerment than have generally been acknowledged.