Read more
From devotional literature to political narratives, medieval texts propose that sexual violence victims have privileged moral, ethical, and spiritual insight. This book explores these discourses of survival in a wide range of medieval English texts, including letters of spiritual advice, legal cases, romances, and legendary histories.
List of contents
Introduction: Discourses of Survival
1. Rape Survivors and Living Martyrs in the Lives of Holy Women
2. Looking at 'Strange Women': Pedagogies of Sexual Violence in Anchoritic Literature
3. Outrage Against Rape and the Battle Over Survival in Fourteenth-Century Legal Discourse and the Wife of Bath's Tale
4. Ravished Wives, Sovereignty, and Political Reform
Afterword: Afterlives in the Twenty-First Century
About the author
Suzanne M. Edwards is Assistant Professor of English at Lehigh University, USA.
Summary
From devotional literature to political narratives, medieval texts propose that sexual violence victims have privileged moral, ethical, and spiritual insight. This book explores these discourses of survival in a wide range of medieval English texts, including letters of spiritual advice, legal cases, romances, and legendary histories.
Additional text
“In The Afterlives of Rape in Medieval English Literature, Suzanne M. Edwards explores representations of outliving rape in English saint’s lives, anchoritic texts, romances, and legal statutes from the eleventh through fifteenth centuries. … This book is valuable for medieval scholars, feminist scholars, and academics and activists who seek to combat sexual violence, as Afterlives provides important insight into theoretical conversations about gendered subjectivity, survival, and agency.” (Carissa M. Harris, Modern Philology, Vol. 115 (3), February, 2018)
Report
"In The Afterlives of Rape in Medieval English Literature, Suzanne M. Edwards explores representations of outliving rape in English saint's lives, anchoritic texts, romances, and legal statutes from the eleventh through fifteenth centuries. ... This book is valuable for medieval scholars, feminist scholars, and academics and activists who seek to combat sexual violence, as Afterlives provides important insight into theoretical conversations about gendered subjectivity, survival, and agency." (Carissa M. Harris, Modern Philology, Vol. 115 (3), February, 2018)
