Women's Writing in English: Medieval England (Longman Critical Readers Series)

Taking as its guiding emblem Christine de Pizan's metaphor of a city of ladies, this volume refuses to treat the medieval woman writer as an anomaly, a lone genius who somehow managed to transcend the limitations of her sex. It insists that women have always participated fully, if not equally, with men in the creation of culture, even during the Middle Ages, and it examines the record of women's cultural participation in medieval England. Women's Writing in English: Medieval England examines women's writing not only in traditional genres such as poetry, drama, and romance, but in a variety of genres which are often excluded from literary canons including medical treatises, correspondence, and the visionary and devotional genres in which women wrote most prolifically.