Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index


  • Record Number: 5453
  • Author(s)/Creator(s):
  • Contributor(s):
  • Title: Dominus/"Ancilla": Rhetorical Subjectivity and Sexual Violence in the Letters of Heloise
  • Source: The Tongue of the Fathers: Gender and Ideology in Twelfth-Century Latin.  Edited by David Townsend and Andrew Taylor.  University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998.  Pages 35 - 54.
  • Description:
  • Article Type: Essay
  • Subject (See Also): Abelard, Peter, Philosopher Classical Influences Heloise, Abbess of Le Paraclet- Letters Latin Literature Literature- Prose Masculinity Rhetoric Sexual Violence Sexuality
  • Award Note:
  • Geographic Area: France
  • Century: 12
  • Primary Evidence:
  • Illustrations:
  • Table:
  • Abstract:
  • Related Resources: Marilynn Desmond, in "Dominus/Ancilla: Rhetorical Subjectivity and Sexual Violence in the Letters of Heloise", examines the extraordinary maneuvers required of the rare woman who wanted to gain a foothold in the homosocial academic world described by Taylor; but she also argues that the "sado-masochism" of Abelard's and Heloise's relationship largely replays and reinforces patterns already implied in the pedagogical situation. This situation is (partially) reconfigured after Heloise's pregnancy and Abelard's castration, but also, in the end, reconfirmed: "Heloise, the 'immasculated' woman, and Abelard, the emasculated man" challenge and expose but do not really alter the power relations of "the Latin literary tradition [and its] pedagogic, erotic, and literary discourses". (51)" From the review written by Monika Otter of "The Tongue of the Fathers: Gender and Ideology in Twelfth-Century Latin," "Medieval Review" (TMR ID: 96.12.11). [Reproduced by permission of the "Medieval Review."].rhetorical subjectivity and sexual violence in the letters of Heloise
  • Author's Affiliation:
  • Conference Info: - , -
  • Year of Publication: 1998.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN/ISBN: 0812234405