Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index


  • Record Number: 6778
  • Author(s)/Creator(s): Flanagan , Sabina.
  • Contributor(s):
  • Title: The Speculum virginum and Traditions of Medieval Dialogue
  • Source: Listen, Daughter: The "Speculum virginum" and the Formation of Religious Women in the Middle Ages.  Edited by Constant J. Mews.  The New Middle Ages Series. Palgrave, 2001.  Pages 181 - 200.
  • Description:
  • Article Type: Essay
  • Subject (See Also): Dialogue in Literature Handbooks Latin Literature Monasticism Speculum Virginum, Latin Handbook for Nuns Women in Literature Women in Religion
  • Award Note:
  • Geographic Area: General
  • Century: 12
  • Primary Evidence:
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  • Table:
  • Abstract: This chapter situates the "Speculum viginum" within the broader context of dialogue literature in the twelfth century. The genre was employed to provide instruction on a wide range of subjects. The "Speculum" is unusual, however, in that it adapts a literary technique normally employed to instruct boys and young men to an extended dialogue between a spiritual guide and his female disciple. Seen in this light, the "Speculum" emerges as a work of great creative originality that applies the questioning technique of scholastic literature to discussing the religious life for women in an unusually vivid way. [Reproduced by permission of Palgrave].
  • Related Resources:
  • Author's Affiliation: University of Adelaide
  • Conference Info: - , -
  • Year of Publication: 2001.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN/ISBN: 0312240082