Ruling Women: Queenship and Gender in Anglo-Saxon Literature by Stacy S. Klein (review)

Abstract

STACY S. KLEIN, Ruling Women: Queenship and Gender in Anglo-Saxon Literature. Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 2006. 296 pp. ISBN: 0-268-03310-2. $30. In Ruling Women, Stacy Klein demonstrates how representations of queens played integral roles in issues that are now recognized as crucial to Anglo-Saxon literature and culture, including 'conversion, social hierarchy, heroism, counsel, idolatry, and lay spirituality'(4). Examining Bede's Historia ecclesiastica, Cynewulf's Elene, Beowulf, and AElfric's biblical translations, Klein shows how Anglo-Saxon writers manipulated the symbolic power of queens to comment upon contemporary social issues. Challenging charges of medieval misogyny, Klein explores 'revisionist possibilities' by analyzing these texts in their broader cultural contexts. In doing so, Klein restores these representations of women to the complex social and literary contexts in which they yield their most valuable insights. She combines feminist theory with cultural studies, historical inquiry, and philology to develop insightful readings of the sociopolitical critiques presented through feminine images and voices. Klein's 'Introduction' analyzes the image of Queen AElfgyfu from the frontispiece of the Liber Vitae. This image captures the spiritual and political centrality of the queen while simultaneously representing her as genetically female. Klein argues that this frees the symbolic meanings of queenship to resonate with contemporary concerns of the Anglo-Saxons, a demonstration which lays the theoretical foundation for the rest of the book. Bede's Historia, as Klein discusses in Chapter 1, 'The Costs of Queenship,' minimizes the role of queens in the process of conversion. Many pagan kings were married to Christian queens, but Bede focuses instead on the influence of bishops and the virtues of Christianity. Klein offers fresh perspective on this familiar material by considering the complex issues that drive Bede to downplay the influences of queens on conversion. The role of queen as proselytizer remains a central issue in Chapter Two, 'Crossing Queens, Pleasing Hierarchies,' which reconsiders Cynewulf's depiction of Helena, mother of Constantine and legendary recoverer of the true Cross. Klein looks more closely at the role of community and Christian submission in the poem, challenging readings that view Helena's deference to her son's authority as misogynistic. Reading these themes in the context of the Benedictine Reform, Klein demonstrates how the poem engages questions of social hierarchy through nostalgia for 'a glorious Roman past' (80). …