Women and Medieval Epic Gender, Genre, and the Limits of Epic Masculinity

This collection of essays explores the place, function, and meaning of women as characters, authors, constructs, and cultural symbols in a variety of epics from the Middle Ages, including those of Persia, Spain, France, England, Germany, and Scandinavia. Medieval epics are traditionally believed to narrate the deeds of men at war. This volume draws our attention not only to the key roles women often play in these narratives, but also to the larger implications they might have for the history of gender. Rather than invite simple cross-cultural generalizations about epic women, however, this book bears witness to the complex gender configurations molded by the rich epic literature of the medieval period.

Sara S. Poor has taught medieval German Studies at Stanford University and at the University of Pennsylvania. She is currently an assistant professor of medieval German literature in the German Department at Princeton University. Her first book, Mechthild of Magdeburg and Her Book: Gender and the Making of Textual Authority is forthcoming in 2004.

Jana K. Schulman taught Old English and Comparative Epic at Southeastern Louisiana University. She is currently an associate professor in the English Department at Western Michigan University, where she teaches Old English and Old Norse. Schulman is the editor of The Rise of the Medieval World, 500-1300, a biographical dictionary published in 2002; her translation and edition of a thirteenth-century Icelandic law code, The Laws of Later Iceland: Jonsbok, is forthcoming in 2004.

Introduction--Sara S. Poor and Jana K. Schulman * Female Heroics and the Construction of Gender * Feminine Heroics in Girart de Roussillon--William Burgwinkle * Women Characters and the Limits of Patriarchy in the Poema de Mio Cid and Mocedades de Rodrigo--Tom Caldin * Gendering the Maiden Warrior in Old Norse--William Layher * Gender and Genre * From Historical Background to Anxiety Personified--Sarah-Grace Heller * Women in the Shahnameh--Dick Davis * Chaucer's Queer Epic--Eve Salisbury * Monstrous Mates: The Leading Ladies of the Nibelungenlied and Völsunga Saga--Kaaren Grimstad and Ray M. Wakefield * Gendered Violence at Feasts in Icelandic Epic--Jana K. Schulman * Authorship, Patronage, and the Gestures of Lordship * What Hrotsvit Did to Virgil--Kate Olson * Female Nobility, Patronage, and the Making of Castilian-Leonese Epic--Mercedes Vaquero * Beowulf's Queens and the Politics of Eleventh-Century England--Helen Damico * The Politics of Emotion in the Nibelungenlied--Kathryn Starkey
Introduction--Sara S. Poor and Jana K. Schulman * Female Heroics and the Construction of Gender * Ethical Acts and Annihilation: Feminine Heroics in Girart de Roussillon--William Burgwinkle * Women Characters and the Limits of Patriarchy in the Poema de Mio Cid and Mocedades de Rodrigo--Tom Caldin * Caught Between Worlds: Gendering the Maiden Warrior in Old Norse--William Layher * Gender and Genre * Women in the Old French Crusade Cycle and Other Epic Works: From Historical Background to Anxiety Personified--Sarah-Grace Heller * Women in the Shahnameh: Exotics and Natives, Rebellious Legends, and Dutiful Histories--Dick Davis * Chaucer's Queer Epic--Eve Salisbury * Monstrous Mates: The Leading Ladies of the Nibelungenlied and Völsunga saga--Kaaren Grimstad and Ray M. Wakefield * 'A Guest is in the Hall': Gendered Violence at Feasts in Icelandic Epic--Jana K. Schulman * Authorship, Patronage, and the Gestures of Lordship * What Hrotsvit Did to Virgil: Expanding the Boundaries of the Classical Epic in Tenth-Century Ottonian Saxony--Kate Olson * Female Nobility, Patronage, and the Making of Castilian-Leonese Epic--Mercedes Vaquero * Beowulf's Queens and the Politics of Eleventh-century England--Helen Damico * Brunhild's Smile. The Politics of Emotion in the Nibelungenlied--Kathryn Starkey