2nd Edition

Women's Writing in Middle English An Annotated Anthology

By Alexandra Barratt Copyright 2010
    376 Pages
    by Routledge

    376 Pages
    by Routledge

    Women's writing in any period remains of critical concern, both at undergraduate and postgraduate level. Alexandra Barratt's edition offers a wide range of texts from the period 1300-1500, including:

    • Original texts written by women in the Middle Ages
    • Texts translated by women in the Middle Ages
    • Prayers, meditations, scriptural comment, and accounts of religious experiences
    • Educational writings
    • Romance, poetry

    Each poem is given a headnote, giving details of composition, manuscript and sources. Full on-page annotation is provided giving details of allusions to contemporary religious, historical and social issues. A general introduction gives context to all the pieces and provides a penetrating account of the role of women in a burgeoning society of literary and cultural transmission.

    Acknowledgements  List of abbreviations  Editorial procedure  Introduction  The Texts (extracts)  1. Middle English Trotula texts  2. Marie de France: Lay le Freine  3. Mechtild of Hackeborn and Gertrude the Great : The Book of Ghostly Grace  4. Marguerite Porete: The Mirror of Simple Souls  5. Elizabeth of Hungary: The Revelations of Saint Elizabeth  6. Bridget of Sweden: The Revelations and The Rule of Our Saviour  7. Catherine of Siena: The Orchard of Syon  8. Julian of Norwich: A Revelation of Love  9. Christine de Pisan: The Epistle of Othea and The Body of Policy  10. A Revelation of Purgatory: A Revelation Showed to a Holy Woman  11. Fifteen Prayers Revealed to a Recluse: The Fifteen Oes  12. Margery Kempe: The Book of Margery Kempe  13. A Collection of Prayers: The Faits and the Passion of Our Lord Jesu Christ  14. Women and the Law  15. Dame Eleanor Hull  16. Juliana Berners: The Book of Hunting  17. The Cellaress of Barking Abbey  18. Some Paston Letters  19. Fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century poems  20. Lady Margaret Beaufort: The Imitation of Christ and The Mirror of Gold to the Sinful Soul  21. Fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century prayers  Bibliography  Index

    Biography

    Alexandra Barratt