Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index

Record Number: 7348
Author(s)/Creator(s): Kinoshita , Sharon.
Contributor(s):
Title: Heldris de Cornüalle's "Roman de Silence" and the Feudal Politics of Lineage
Source URL: PMLA: Publications of the Modern Language Association of America (Full Text via JSTOR) 110, 3 (May 1995): 397-409. Link Info target = '_blank'>PMLA: Publications of the Modern Language Association of America (Full Text via JSTOR) 110, 3 (May 1995): 397-409. Link Info
Description:
Article Type: Journal Article
Subject (See Also): Cross Dressing in Literature Feudalism in Literature Gender Heldris de Cornualle, Poet- Roman de Silence Inheritance Literature- Verse Women in Literature
Award Note:
Geographic Area: France
Century: 13
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Abstract: The thirteenth-century French text "Le roman de Silence" is the story of a count's daughter, Silence, brought up as a boy because the king has prohibited female inheritance. Whereas previous readings emphasize the gender politics of the heroine's success as a male and the explicit thematization of issues of textuality, I focus instead on the work's representation of the feudal institutions of marriage, lineage, and the transmission of property. Under the cover of Silence's cross-dressing and refeminization, the text renegotiates the way bodies mattered in the thirteenth-century imaginary, redefining the function of the medieval nobility as geneaological reproduction rather than military service. While the story of the protagonist's parents euphemizes this politics of lineage, by the end of the tale the king's only recourse is Silence. [Reproduced by permission of the Modern Language Association of America.]
Related Resources:
Author's Affiliation: University of California, Santa Cruz
Conference Info: - , -
Year of Publication: 1995.
Language: English
ISSN/ISBN: 00308129