Woman Defamed and Woman Defended: An Anthology of Medieval Texts.
- Author/Editor
- Blamires, Alcuin. Karen Pratt, and C. W. Marx, eds.
- Title
- Woman Defamed and Woman Defended: An Anthology of Medieval Texts.
- Published
- Blamires, Alcuin. Karen Pratt, and C. W. Marx, eds. "Woman Defamed and Woman Defended: An Anthology of Medieval Texts." Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992
- Review
- The selections in this extraordinarily useful anthology, all in modern English translation, range chronologically from Aristotle to Christine de Pizan, and are divided into eight chapters, "The Roots of Antifeminist Tradition," "The Church Fathers," "The Legacy of the Church Fathers," "The Satirical Tradition in Medieval Latin," "Antifeminist Tales," "Vernacular Adaptations in the Later Middle Ages," "The Wife of Bath," "Responses to Antifeminism," and "A Woman defends Women." The second to last chapter includes (pp. 248-49) a brief excerpt from CA (7.4239-4307, translated in modern English prose), in which Genius argues, contrary to a long tradition that is manifested elsewhere in the anthology, that the man is to blame rather than the woman when he allows himself to be distracted by her beauty. The headnote to the selection suggests that the emphasis on personal responsibility reflected in this passage provides a main theme for the entire poem. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 12.2]
- Date
- 1992
- Gower Subjects
- Facsimiles, Editions, and Translations
- Confessio Amantis