IMC 2014: Sessions
Session 1525: Imperium in imperio: Women, Power, and Authority in Chaucer and Malory
Thursday 10 July 2014, 09.00-10.30
| Sponsor: | Medieval Research Centre, University of Leicester |
|---|---|
| Organiser: | Anne Marie D'Arcy, School of English, University of Leicester |
| Moderator/Chair: | Erin Sebo, School of English, Queen's University Belfast |
| Paper 1525-a | Beaten for a Book: Models of Violence in the Wife of Bath's Prologue (Language: English) Index terms: Language and Literature - Middle English, Literacy and Orality, Social History |
| Paper 1525-b | Abstract Personification and the Feminine in the Tale of Melibee (Language: English) Index terms: Art History - General, Language and Literature - Middle English, Women's Studies |
| Paper 1525-c | Ladies of the Lake: Submersion and Subversion in Le Morte Darthur (Language: English) Index terms: Language and Literature - Middle English, Language and Literature - French or Occitan, Women's Studies |
| Abstract | This session examines how Chaucer and Malory approach the subversive power of women in a world which grants them no authority through the use of pedagogic topoi, personification allegory, and folklore motifs. Throughout his work Chaucer explores the cultural interstice between the position of women in contemporary society and the abstract, feminine ideal. However, Malory sublimates the destabilising force which women often exert within society throughout his sources, in an effort to bulwark his vision of social cohesion. |