Title: The power and the weakness of women in Anglo-Norman romance
Abstract: Assumptions about the role of women in medieval romance have often sprung from a supposition that their general lack of power and influence in medieval society must necessarily be reflected by powerlessness in that society's fiction. So a recent historian has sweepingly dismissed ‘the helpless damsels in courtly romances who are prone to victimisation by dragons’. But, as she herself acknowledges in the same article, it is more usual for both historical and literary sources to provide conflicting images of women. It is the purpose of this essay to examine the ambivalent and inconsistent images of women provided by one small corner of medieval fiction – the Anglo-Norman romances of the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries – and to consider how they relate to historical circumstances.
Publication Year: 1993
Publication Date: 1993-04-15
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 7
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