Feminized counsel and the literature of advice in England, 1380-1500

Feminized counsel and the literature of advic ...
Misty Schieberle, Misty Schieb ...
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Last edited by MARC Bot
August 8, 2024 | History

Feminized counsel and the literature of advice in England, 1380-1500

The term 'feminized counsel' denotes the advice associated with and spoken by women characters. This book demonstrates that rather than classify women's voices as an opposite against which to define masculine authority, late medieval vernacular poets embraced the feminine as a representation of their subordination to kings, patrons, and authorities. The works studied include Gower's 'Confessio Amantis', Chaucer's 'Legend of Good Women' and 'Melibee', and English translations of Christine de Pizan's 'Epistre Othea'. To advise readers, these texts draw on the politicized genre of mirrors for princes. Whereas Latin mirrors such as the 'Secretum secretorum' and Giles of Rome's 'De regimine principum' represented women as inferior, weak, and detrimental to masculine authority, these vernacular texts break traditional expectations and portray women as essential and authoritative political counsellors. By considering Latin and French sources, historical models of queens' intercessions, and literary models of authoritative female personifications, this study explores the woman counsellor as a literary topos that enabled poets to criticize, advise, and influence powerful readers. 'Feminized Counsel' elucidates the manner in which vernacular poets concerned with issues of counsel, mercy, and power identified with fictional women's struggles to develop authority in the political sphere. These women counsellors become enabling models that paradoxically generate authority for poets who also lack access to traditionally recognized forms of intellectual or literary authority.

Publish Date
Publisher
Brepols
Language
English
Pages
224

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Book Details


Table of Contents

Women, counsel, and marriage metaphors in John Gower's Confessio Amantis
'Lerne this at me!' Alceste as a model for the Poet in the Legend of Good Women
Exemplarity and Chaucer's Melibee: contexualizing Prudence's authority
Male translators' identification with women: the Epistre Othea in Middle English
Conclusion.

Edition Notes

Includes bibliographical references (pages 197-214) and index.

Published in
Turnhout
Series
Disputatio -- Volume 26, Disputatio (Turnhout, Belgium) -- v. 26.
Copyright Date
2014

Classifications

Dewey Decimal Class
821/.1093522
Library of Congress
PR317.W66 S35 2014

The Physical Object

Pagination
x, 224 pages
Number of pages
224

ID Numbers

Open Library
OL44723617M
ISBN 10
2503550126
ISBN 13
9782503550121
OCLC/WorldCat
880556189

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August 8, 2024 Edited by MARC Bot import existing book
December 21, 2022 Created by MARC Bot Imported from marc_columbia MARC record