Examines representations of women and femininity in Old English poetry and prose.

2001 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Exploring Old English texts ranging from Beowulf to Ælfric's Lives of Saints, this book examines ways that women's monastic, material, and devotional practices in Anglo-Saxon England shaped literary representations of women and femininity. Horner argues that these representations derive from a "discourse" of female monastic enclosure, based on the increasingly strict rules of cloistered confinement that regulated the female religious body in the early Middle Ages. She shows that the female subjects of much Old English literature are enclosed by many layers—literal and figurative, textual, material, discursive, spatial—all of which image and reinforce the powerful institutions imposed by the Church on the female body. Though it has long been recognized that medieval religious women were enclosed, and that virginity was highly valued, this book is the first to consider the interrelationships of these two positions—that is, how the material practices of female monasticism inform the textual operations of Old English literature.

This is a collection of essays on the literature of "saints' lives" in Anglo-Saxon literature.

This book throws light on the debate about the 'orality' or 'literacy' of Old English verse, whether it was transmitted orally or written down.

Re-examines a critical tradition unchallenged since the 19th century. The 20 essays reassess the place of women in Anglo-Saxon culture as demonstrated by the laws, works by women, and the depiction of them in the standard Old English canon of literature (Beowulf, Alfred, Wulfstan, et al.) Categories include the historical record, sexuality and folklore, language and gender characterization, and several deconstructions of stereotypes. Paper edition (unseen), $14.50. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Contributing to the growing interest in early modern women and religion, this essay collection advances scholarship by introducing readers to recently recovered or little-studied texts and by offering new paradigms for the analysis of women's religious literary activities. Contributors underscore the fact that women had complex, multi-dimensional relationships to the religio-political order, acting as activists for specific causes but also departing from confessional norms in creative ways and engaging in intra-as well as extra-confessional conflict. The volume thus includes essays that reflect on the complex dynamics of religious culture itself and that illuminate the importance of women's engagement with Catholicism throughout the period. The collection also highlights the vitality of neglected intertextual genres such as prayers, meditations, and translations, and it focuses attention on diverse forms of textual production such as literary writing, patronage, epistolary exchanges, public reading, and epitaphs. Collectively, English Women, Religion, and Textual Production, 1500-1625 offers a comprehensive treatment of the historical, literary, and methodological issues preoccupying scholars of women and religious writing.