The Afterlives of Rape in Medieval English Literature

From devotional literature to political narratives, medieval texts propose that survivors of sexual violence have privileged moral, ethical, and spiritual insight. The Afterlives of Rape in Medieval English Literature explores these discourses of survival in a wide range of texts, including letters of spiritual advice, legal statutes and cases, saints' lives, romances, theological summae, and legendary histories. Edwards argues that understanding the literary history of survival as distinct from the history of rape highlights the ethical importance of attending to violence against women as well as the costs of reifying gender difference and its traumatic identifications - both in our study of the past and in contemporary feminist politics.

Suzanne M. Edwards is Assistant Professor of English at Lehigh University, USA.

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