Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index


  • Record Number: 5294
  • Author(s)/Creator(s):
  • Contributor(s):
  • Title: Origenary Fantasies: Abelard's Castration and Confession
  • Source: Becoming Male in the Middle Ages.  Edited by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen and Bonnie Wheeler.  Garland Publishing, 1997.  Pages 107 - 128.
  • Description:
  • Article Type: Essay
  • Subject (See Also): Abelard, Peter, Philosopher- Ad Amicum Pro Consolatione Epistola Castration Gender Heloise, Abbess of Le Paraclet Intellectuals Latin Literature Literature- Prose Masculinity Rhetoric
  • Award Note:
  • Geographic Area: France
  • Century: 12
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  • Abstract: This essay argues that Abelard essentializes his own masculinity as an intellectual, not a physical, capacity or prowess, and thus his castration serves to enhance and fulfill his strategies of claiming authoritative status as a magisterial philosopher. Heloise colludes with him in this project. [Reproduced by permission of Garland Publishing at http://www.garlandpub.com].
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  • Conference Info: - , -
  • Year of Publication: 1997.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN/ISBN: 0815328362