Skip to main content

IMC 2013: Sessions

Session 1122: Pleasure and Sinfulness in Everyday Life: Healing, Hygiene, and Material Culture

Wednesday 3 July 2013, 11.15-12.45

Moderator/Chair:Naama Cohen-Hanegbi, Wolfson College, University of Oxford
Paper 1122-a'It shall be an occasion of gladness,' Yet 'have pity upon me': Documenting Women's Experiences of Pleasure and Pain via Female Participation in Middle English Material Culture
(Language: English)
Kenna L. Olsen, Department of English, Mount Royal University, Alberta
Index terms: Daily Life, Manuscripts and Palaeography, Women's Studies
Abstract

Paper -a:
As part of my ongoing study of the role of Middle English women in the material and literary culture of the Middle English period by way of an examination of women's names (signatures or autographs) in both literary and commercial documents, this paper will present content from two unpublished letters written by (signed by or attributed to) secular women in the late Middle English period. By doing so, two individual Middle English secular woman's experiences of, or lack of, pleasure will be explored from the differing experiences and perceptions of women living in at least two different arenas of medieval society - that of wife, and that of widow.