Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index


  • Record Number: 8056
  • Author(s)/Creator(s): Jewers , Caroline.
  • Contributor(s):
  • Title: Reading and Righting: Issues of Value and Gender in Early Women Poets
  • Source: Exemplaria: A Journal of Theory in Medieval and Renaissance Studies 10, 1 (Spring 1998): Pages 97 - 121.
  • Description:
  • Article Type: Journal Article
  • Subject (See Also): Dia, Countess of, Trobairitz Literature- History and Criticism Literature- Verse Love in Literature Poets Trobairitz Women Authors
  • Award Note:
  • Geographic Area: France
  • Century: 12
  • Primary Evidence:
  • Illustrations:
  • Table:
  • Abstract: This study analyzes the concept of value in the lyric poems of the Comtessa de Dia, one of the best known "trobairitz" of medieval Occitania. It argues, through close reading of the language of her cansos, that she encodes a network of imagery pertaining to her sense of her own value in her poems, and by extension explores the status of woman as desiring subject within a lyric system of courtly love that problematized that position. Jewers frames her discussion by looking at how critics too have sometimes fallen into a gender-biased and political trap when assessing women's lyric poetry, and established systems of value that have underprivileged our assessment of such works. She compares their fortunes to those of women artists. Other poets and performers mentioned include Corinna, Sulpicia, and the Gorilla Girls. [Abstract submitted by the author to the Medieval Feminist Index.]
  • Related Resources:
  • Author's Affiliation: University of Kansas
  • Conference Info: - , -
  • Year of Publication: 1998.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN/ISBN: 10412573