Synopses & Reviews
This collection of essays examines a range of texts commemorating European holy women from the ninth through fifteenth centuries. The contributors explore the relationship between memorial practices and identity formation in two ways: first, by showing how women drew upon traditions and memories in fashioning their own lived lives; and secondly, by showing how both male and female authors used medieval memory arts to portray those lives for contemporary and future audiences. This book draws upon much of the recent scholarly interest in the nature and uses of memory, and will interest scholars of medieval literature, medieval religious history, feminist scholars, and historians of rhetoric.
Synopsis
Examines a range of texts commemorating European holy women from the ninth through fifteenth centuries. Explores the relationship between memorial practices and identity formation. Draws upon much of the recent scholarly interest in the nature and uses of memory.
About the Author
Margaret Cotter-Lynch is an Associate Professor in the Department of English, Humanities, and Languages at Southeastern Oklahoma State University.Brad Herzog is an Associate Professor of English at Saginaw Valley State University.
Table of Contents
Preface; C.GlennIntroduction; M.Cotter-Lynch and B.HerzogNuns on Parade: Memorializing Women in Karolus Magnus et Leo Papa; H.ScheckMnemonic Sanctity and the Ladder of Reading: Notker's 'In Natale Sanctarum Feminarum'; M.Cotter-LynchEnvisioning a Saint: Visions in the Miracles of Saint Margaret of Scotland; C.KeeneSecret Designs/Public Shapes: Ekphrastic Tensions in Hildegard's Scivias; C.BarbettiImitating the Imagined: Clemence of Barking's Life of St. Catherine; B.ZimbalistMemory, Identity and Women's Representation in the Portuguese reception of Vitae Patrum: Winning a Name; A.M.Machado'In mei memoriam facietis': Remembering Ritual and Refiguring 'Woman' in Gertrud the Great of Helfta's Exercitia spiritualia; E.JohnsonMakinga Place: Imitatio Mariae in Julian of Norwich's Self-Construction; E.HansonPortrait of a Holy Life: Mnemonic Inventiveness in The Book of Margery Kempe; B.Herzog