Medieval images of womanhood: the construction of Mary of Nemmegen
The late-medieval English prose text Mary of Nemmegen (c 1518) relates the tale of a girl who spends seven years with the devil but is ultimately miraculously saved. In the context of Chaucer’s Wife of Bath’s textualisation of female experience versus male authority, this feminist study problematis...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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University of the Free State
2002-01-01
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| Series: | Acta Academica |
| Online Access: | https://journals.ufs.ac.za/index.php/aa/article/view/772 |
| _version_ | 1797270910745444352 |
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| author | Margaret Mary Raftery |
| author_facet | Margaret Mary Raftery |
| author_sort | Margaret Mary Raftery |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description |
The late-medieval English prose text Mary of Nemmegen (c 1518) relates the tale of a girl who spends seven years with the devil but is ultimately miraculously saved. In the context of Chaucer’s Wife of Bath’s textualisation of female experience versus male authority, this feminist study problematises the orthodox interpretation of the exemplum as a quintessentially medieval tale of the triumph of Good over Evil by offering a “resisting” reading of the text’s constructions of Good/Evil, the church, and female identity. It does so by means of an investigation into the “authoritative” textual and iconographical sources of medieval images of womanhood — their nature and their coercive power in the construction of female identity, both generally and in the specific context of the operation of their discourse in Mary of Nemmegen. The text’s culminating dream is also read “resistingly” as unmasking the falsity of these images of womanhood by liberating the text to interrogate and deconstruct its own key terms, notably the binary Good/Evil and the medieval church’s construction of God.
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| first_indexed | 2024-03-08T04:42:53Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-7087cfa3f6a54065bf622a289c6ea1a0 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 0587-2405 2415-0479 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-25T02:11:47Z |
| publishDate | 2002-01-01 |
| publisher | University of the Free State |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Acta Academica |
| spelling | doaj.art-7087cfa3f6a54065bf622a289c6ea1a02024-03-07T11:14:19ZengUniversity of the Free StateActa Academica0587-24052415-04792002-01-011Medieval images of womanhood: the construction of Mary of NemmegenMargaret Mary Raftery0University of the Free State The late-medieval English prose text Mary of Nemmegen (c 1518) relates the tale of a girl who spends seven years with the devil but is ultimately miraculously saved. In the context of Chaucer’s Wife of Bath’s textualisation of female experience versus male authority, this feminist study problematises the orthodox interpretation of the exemplum as a quintessentially medieval tale of the triumph of Good over Evil by offering a “resisting” reading of the text’s constructions of Good/Evil, the church, and female identity. It does so by means of an investigation into the “authoritative” textual and iconographical sources of medieval images of womanhood — their nature and their coercive power in the construction of female identity, both generally and in the specific context of the operation of their discourse in Mary of Nemmegen. The text’s culminating dream is also read “resistingly” as unmasking the falsity of these images of womanhood by liberating the text to interrogate and deconstruct its own key terms, notably the binary Good/Evil and the medieval church’s construction of God. https://journals.ufs.ac.za/index.php/aa/article/view/772 |
| spellingShingle | Margaret Mary Raftery Medieval images of womanhood: the construction of Mary of Nemmegen Acta Academica |
| title | Medieval images of womanhood: the construction of Mary of Nemmegen |
| title_full | Medieval images of womanhood: the construction of Mary of Nemmegen |
| title_fullStr | Medieval images of womanhood: the construction of Mary of Nemmegen |
| title_full_unstemmed | Medieval images of womanhood: the construction of Mary of Nemmegen |
| title_short | Medieval images of womanhood: the construction of Mary of Nemmegen |
| title_sort | medieval images of womanhood the construction of mary of nemmegen |
| url | https://journals.ufs.ac.za/index.php/aa/article/view/772 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT margaretmaryraftery medievalimagesofwomanhoodtheconstructionofmaryofnemmegen |