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Spring, 2002
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Jennifer
Bryan
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English 239
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Rice 26 (440) 775-8586
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MWF 2:30-3:20, AJLC 102
E-mail: Jennifer.Bryan@oberlin.edu
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Office Hours: Monday, 3:30-4:30, Wednesday,
1:30-2:30,
Friday, 9:00-10:00, and by appointment
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Medieval
Women Writers
Course Description:
This course will explore a variety of writings
produced by women in the European Middle Ages. We will read the short
romances (lais) of Marie de France, the letters of Heloise, the mystical revelations
of Julian of Norwich, the autobiographical narrative of Margery Kempe, and
the attempts of Christine de Pisan to “write women good,” among
others. We will consider the possibility of female authorship for some
anonymous poems. We will also read selected works by male authors—texts
written for or about women—which help to illuminate some of the issues
faced by medieval women who wanted to write.
Each text will raise its own set of questions,
of course, and we will try to approach each text on its own terms. But
we will also be trying to think of these writings as a meaningful category,
as a group of texts through which we can ask important questions about gender,
writing, and the past. How did cultural expectations about women affect
what women wrote? How did women overcome the many obstacles to female
literary production? What strategies are available to people who cannot
speak openly about the issues they face? How did women negotiate the
powerful religious discourses of their time? What constitutes “literary”
production, and what is worth studying? What does it mean to be an “author?”
What are our own motivations for studying medieval women writers?
Texts available at the Oberlin College
Bookstore:
Required:
The Lais of Marie de France (Penguin)
Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine
Love (Penguin)
The Book of Margery Kempe (Norton)
The Letters of Abelard and Heloise
(Penguin)
Christin de Pizan, The Book of the City
of Ladies (Persea)
Pearsall, The Floure and the Leafe,
etc. (TEAMS)
The Life of Christina of Markyate
(MART)
1. Since this is primarily a discussion
course, your active and informed participation is crucial—not only to
your own experience of the course, but to the experiences of others.
Please take this responsibility seriously. (15%)
N.B: I consider more than three absences
excessive, and I do keep track.
2. Numerous short writing assignments,
to be graded credit/no credit. These are not meant to burden you with
excessive writing, but to give you a chance to think through some of the issues
that come up in the reading. They are your opportunity to be daring,
provocative, or exploratory—to speak not only to me, but to yourself
and to other members of the group. Sometimes I will ask you to write
on a specific subject; other assigments will be open topic. I will collect
these as they are due, and then again in a portfolio at the end of the semester.
Please purchase a folder in which to collect them. (20%)
3. One 5-page paper, due mid-term
(25%)
4. One 10-page final project, due on the day of the final exam
(40%)
| WEEK ONE |
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| M |
2/4 |
Introduction |
| W |
2/6 |
ERES: Old English elegies.
“The Wanderer,” “The Seafarer,” “The
Wife’s Complaint” (Old English
provided for reference), “Wulf and Eadwacer” (in two
translations; read both).
Assignment:
1. I will check to see that you have successfully
mastered the art of printing from online reserve.
2. Informal reaction paper (about 1 page, single spaced): How
are the elegies in the female voice different? What might those
differences have to say about the place of women in Anglo-Saxon culture?
And/or: what difference would it make to you whether these poems were
written by a man or a woman? Would you read them differently? |
| F |
2/8 |
ERES: Woolf,
ch. 3 of A Room of One’s Own (41-57). Selected Paston
letters. McNamer, “Female Authors, Provincial
Setting” 279-294 (295-302 optional). Anon, “The
Findern lyrics” (in Middle English) OR “Findern
lyrics modernized”(not in Middle English).
Assignment:
1. You should always take notes when
you read, but it is particularly important when the reading is as diverse
as today’s. A quick review of your notes will help you to pull
together your thoughts about the material. It will also provide quick
reference later in the semester. I will ask you to turn in
your notes on today’s reading, or a copy of them. (I suggest
that you take both informative notes—e.g., a list of McNamer’s
arguments for female authorship of the Findern lyrics—and speculative
ones—e.g., thoughts and questions raised by the readings and their
connections to each other.) |
| WEEK TWO |
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| M |
2/11 |
The Letters of Abelard and Heloise,
57-118 (Historia Calamitatum and Heloise’s
first letter).
ERES: Newman, “Authority,
Authenticity, and the Repression of Heloise,” in From Virile
Woman to WomanChrist, 46-59.
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| W |
2/13 |
Abelard and Heloise, 119-156,
277-284.
Assignment: When you
have finished the reading (or by Tuesday at
midnight, whichever comes first), I would like you to spend no more
than 15 minutes posting some initial questions and/or analysis on
the discussion board.
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| F |
2/15 |
Abelard and Heloise, 159-179 (letter
of direction).
ERES: Newman, “Authority,
Authenticity...” 68-75 (60-67 optional).
Assignment: Response or
position paper (1 page single-spaced), open topic.
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| WEEK THREE |
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| M |
2/18 |
The Floure and the Leaf
ERES: Barratt, “’The
Floure and the Leafe’ and ‘The Assembly of Ladies’:
Is There a (Sexual) Difference?”
1-7 (remainder optional).
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| W |
2/20 |
The Assembly of Ladies |
| F |
2/22 |
The Lais of Marie de France
(Prologue, Guigemar, Equitan, Le Fresne, Bisclavret) |
| WEEK FOUR |
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Assignment:
By Sunday, 4:30 p.m., you should post a short
reaction or position paper (250-450 words)
on the courseinfo discussion board. By Monday noon, you should
post at least a brief comment on someone else’s paper.
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| M |
2/25 |
The Lais of Marie de France
(Lanval, Les Deus Amanz, Yonec, Laustic) |
| W |
2/27 |
The Lais of Marie
de France (Milun, Chaitivel, Chevrefoil, Eliduc) |
| F |
3/1 |
ERES: Blamires, from
Woman Defamed and Woman Defended. Woolf, from
ch. 2 (25-36).
Chaucer, The Wife of Bath’s Description, ll. 445-476;
The Wife of Bath’s Prologue, ll.
1-193 (pages 42-51). Hansen, “Of His Love Daungerous
to Me,” 273-276 (this is in the Bedford Wife of Bath, which you may
have purchased). |
| WEEK FIVE |
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| M |
3/4 |
ERES: Chaucer, “The
Wife of Bath’s Prologue,” ll. 194-856 (pages 51-73)
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| W |
3/6 |
ERES: Delany, “Strategies
of Silence in the Wife of Bath’s Recital,” 49-62. |
| F |
3/8 |
ERES: Chaucer, “The
Wife of Bath’s Tale” (pages 73-85). Hansen, “Of
His Love Daungerous” (ERES or Bedford
WB), 276-82. Delany, “Strategies of Silence,”
62-66.
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| WEEK SIX |
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| M |
3/11 |
DUE:
5-page essay, double-spaced, open topicERES:
Christin de Pisan, from The Book of Fortune’s Transformations
(99-102, 104-107); from Christine’s Vision (184-201).
The
Book of the City of Ladies: xxvi-xxx (list of Christine’s
works); 3-30 (book 1, sections 1-10)
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| W |
3/13 |
The Book of the City of Ladies:
30-55 (book 1, sections 11-20—Zenobia); 62-79
(sections 27-37—Concerning great good); 86-95 (sections 43-46—Dido);
99-106 (book 2, sections 1-4—women prophets). The selections
here comprise about 57 pages; if you have time for 75, just read straight
through from 30-106.
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| F |
3/15 |
The
Book of the City of Ladies: 110-126 (book 2, sections 7-17—Argia);
134-135 (section 25—Christine to
Rectitude); 142-149 (sections 30-33—Sabine Ladies); 153-158 (sections
36-41—Penelope); 160-162 (section 44—Lucretia); 164-168 (sections
47-48—Nero); 184-192 (sections 53-57—Thisbe); 209-223 (sections
2.66-3.4—Margaret); 234-245 (sections 10-13—Euphrosyna); 254-257
(section 19).
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III. WOMEN AND THE CHURCH: HAGIOGRAPHY, ENCLOSURE,
MYSTICIS |
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“Benedicite! How could a woman
occupy an hour or two hours in the love of our Lord?”
—Richard Caister, vicar of St. Stephens in Norwich, to Margery Kempe“
For trusteth well, it is an impossible/
That any clerk wol speke good of wives,/But
if it be of hooly seintes lives...” —The Wife
of Bath
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| WEEK SEVEN |
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| M |
3/18 |
Meet at the Allen Art Museum
ERES: Life of St. Katherine
(262-284). Life of St. Margaret (288-305). Hrotsvitha
of Gandersheim, “The Martyrdom of the Holy Virgins Fides, Spes,
and Caritas” (215-224). (Printing optional,
but do take notes)
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| W |
3/20 |
ERES: Osbern Bokenham’s
“Life of St. Anne” (29-41), “Life of St. Mary Magdalene”
(101-124). (Printing optional, but do take notes)
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| F |
3/22 |
Assignment: Female
Saints on the Internet (Class will “meet”
electronically rather than in the flesh. By 2:00, each student
should email me at least one annotated hyperlink, which I will post on
courseinfo.)
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—SPRING BREAK—
(N.B: the schedule for after spring
break is provisional; no written assignments or critical readings are
indicated. An update will be provided.)
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| WEEK EIGHT |
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| M |
4/1 |
The Life of Christina of Markyate
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| W |
4/3 |
The Life of Christina of Markyate |
| F |
4/5 |
ERES: Bynum, Holy
Feast and Holy Fast, 13-23 (“Religious Women in the Later
Middle Ages”); Ancrene Wisse.
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| WEEK NINE |
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| M |
4/8 |
ERES: Ancrene Wisse |
| W |
4/10 |
ERES: “The Wooing of Our
Lord,” “An Orison to God Almighty,” selections
from Continental women mystics |
| F |
4/12 |
ERES: Bynum, Holy Feast
and Holy Fast, “Intro,” “Food in the Lives of Women
Saints,” “Food in the Writings of Women Mystics”
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| WEEK TEN |
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| M |
4/15 |
ERES: Bynum, “Food Practices
and Religious Roles,” “Woman as Body and as
Food,” “Women’s Symbols.” |
| W |
4/17 |
Julian of Norwich, Revelations
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| F |
4/19 |
Julian of Norwich, Revelations |
| WEEK ELEVEN |
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| M |
4/22 |
Julian of Norwich, Revelations |
| W |
4/24 |
Julian of Norwich, Revelations |
| F |
4/26 |
The Book of Margery Kempe |
| WEEK TWELVE |
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| M |
4/29 |
The Book of Margery Kempe |
| W |
5/1 |
The Book of Margery Kempe |
| F |
5/3 |
The Book of Margery Kempe |
| WEEK THIRTEEN |
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| M |
5/6 |
The Book of Margery Kempe |
| W |
5/8 |
The Book of Margery Kempe |
| F |
5/10 |
no class; extended office hours for paper
conferences |
| Thursday, May 16, 2:00 p.m. |
DUE: 8-10 page final project |