Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index


  • Record Number: 5317
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  • Title: Women Writers and Women Rulers: Rhetorical and Political Empowerment in the Fifteenth Century
  • Source: Women in German Yearbook 9, ( 1993): Pages 25 - 48.
  • Description:
  • Article Type: Journal Article
  • Subject (See Also): Deception in Literature Eleonore von Schottland, Author- Pontus und Sidonia Elisabeth von Nassau- Saarbrucken, Author- Huge Scheppel Elisabeth von Nassau- Saarbrucken, Author- Konigin Sibille Literature- Prose Noble Women Politics in Literature Queens in
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  • Geographic Area: Germany
  • Century: 15
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  • Abstract: The first prose novels in the German language have been attributed to two writers of the late Middle Ages, Elisabeth von Nassau-Saarbrücken (c. 1393-1456) and Eleonore von Österreich (1433-1480). These Early New High German texts have been typed by scholars as Trivialliteratur, a classification this essay questions. Eleonore and Elisabeth transform their source texts, chansons de geste, to increase the political role for women. I argue that the authors' own international political skill and marital experience affected their revisions. Rhetorically, women are depicted as speaking honestly, unlike the characterization of women's speech so prevalent in medieval misogynistic texts. Finally, this essay suggests future theoretical approaches for analyzing these works. [Reproduced from Women in German Yearbook 9: Feminist Studies in German Literature and Culture edited by Jeanette Clausen and Sara Friedrichsmeyer by permission of the University Press. © 1994 by the University of Nebraska Press.]
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  • Year of Publication: 1993.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN/ISBN: 10587446