The Afterlives of Rape in Medieval English Literature

From devotional literature to political narratives, medieval texts propose that sexual violence victims have privileged moral, ethical, and spiritual insight. This book explores these discourses of survival in a wide range of medieval English texts, including letters of spiritual advice, legal cases, romances, and legendary histories.

In The Afterlives of Rape in Medieval English Literature, Suzanne M. Edwards explores representations of outliving rape in English saint's lives, anchoritic texts, romances, and legal statutes from the eleventh through fifteenth centuries. This book is valuable for medieval scholars, feminist scholars, and academics and activists who seek to combat sexual violence, as Afterlives provides important insight into theoretical conversations about gendered subjectivity, survival, and agency. (Carissa M. Harris, Modern Philology, Vol. 115 (3), February, 2018)

Auteur

Suzanne M. Edwards is Assistant Professor of English at Lehigh University, USA.

Contenu

Introduction: Discourses of Survival

1. Rape Survivors and Living Martyrs in the Lives of Holy Women
2. Looking at 'Strange Women': Pedagogies of Sexual Violence in Anchoritic Literature
3. Outrage Against Rape and the Battle Over Survival in Fourteenth-Century Legal Discourse and the Wife of Bath's Tale
4. Ravished Wives, Sovereignty, and Political Reform
   Afterword: Afterlives in the Twenty-First Century