IMC 2013: Sessions
Session 1220: Gendering the Pleasure Garden: (Re)Reading the Hortus conclusus in the Middle Ages, I
Wednesday 3 July 2013, 14.15-15.45
| Sponsor: | Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship |
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| Organiser: | Liz Herbert McAvoy, Department of English Language & Literature, Swansea University |
| Moderator/Chair: | Liz Herbert McAvoy, Department of English Language & Literature, Swansea University |
| Paper 1220-a | Policing the Queer: Narratives of Dissent and Containment in Chaucer's The Knight's Tale and The Franklin's Tale (Language: English) Index terms: Gender Studies, Language and Literature - Middle English |
| Paper 1220-b | Mary in the Hortus conclusus: Healing the Body and Healing the Soul (Language: English) Index terms: Gender Studies, Language and Literature - Middle English, Medicine |
| Paper 1220-c | 'I have not made a tryst with you': Single Girls and Otherworld Lovers (Language: English) Index terms: Language and Literature - Celtic, Language and Literature - Middle English, Sexuality, Women's Studies |
| Abstract | The image of the hortus conclusus has long haunted the human imaginary. Emerging, in part, from the tradition that included the Song of Songs, it found its way into both religious and secular medieval texts, becoming a staple of monastic and courtly discourse. Most famously associated with the virginal maternity of Mary, its pleasures became associated with religious discipline and spiritual fecundity as well as carnal love and sexuality. These sessions, therefore, revisit both the pleasures and displeasures of the medieval hortus conclusus, from the perspectives provided by gender-aware methodologies. |