Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index


  • Record Number: 5793
  • Author(s)/Creator(s): Åström , Berit.
  • Contributor(s):
  • Title: The Wages of Sex: Repression of Female Sexuality in Old English Texts
  • Source: Old English Newsletter 33, 3 (Spring 2000): Paper presented at the International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds, July 10-13, 2000, Session 701: "Sexual Politics and the Representation of Women."
  • Description:
  • Article Type: Conference Paper Abstract
  • Subject (See Also): Literary Historians Sexuality in Literature Women in Literature
  • Award Note:
  • Geographic Area: British Isles
  • Century:
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  • Abstract: This paper advances the view that many Anglo-Saxonists work under the assumption that love and sexual desire were not literary topics used by Anglo-Saxon writers. When such topics do occur, the scholars employ a variety of strategies in order to erase or circumvent those topics, the most striking of which is the reading into the texts of sexualized violence against women. In this paper I look at some scholarly analyses of a number of texts - some of the riddles of the Exeter Book, Genesis A, Apollonius of Tyre, Wulf and Eadwacer, The Wife's Lament and Cynewulf and Cyneheard - and the strategies the scholars use to deal with the topics of love and sexual desire. [Reproduced by permission of the editor Robert L. Schichler and the editors of the Old English Newsletter.]
  • Related Resources:
  • Author's Affiliation: Umeå University
  • Conference Info: - , -
  • Year of Publication: 2000.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN/ISBN: 00301973