The New Middle Ages: Architectures of Wonder in Melusine

Shaw, Jan

This book offers a much-needed consideration of Melusine within medieval and contemporary theories of space, memory, and gender. The Middle English Melusine offers a particularly rich source for such a study, as it presents the story of a powerful fairy/human woman who desires a full human life—and death—within a literary tradition that is more friendly to women’s agency than its continental counterparts. After establishing a “textual habitus of wonder,” Jan Shaw explores the tale in relation to a range of Middle English traditions including love and marriage, the spatial practices of women, the operation of individual and collective memory, and the legacies of patrimony. Melusine emerges as a complex figure, representing a multifaceted feminine subject that furthers our understanding of Middle English women’s sense of self in the world.

Details

Published by: Palgrave Macmillan

Publication Date: 2016-09-13

Format: Hardcover

ISBN-13: 9781137456502

DOI: 10.1057/978-1-137-45046-3

Dimensions: 210cm x148cm

Pages: 272