The Representation of Women's Emotions in Medieval and Early Modern Culture by Lisa Perfetti

Abstract

REVIEWS The Representation ofWomen's Emotions in Medieval and Early Modern Culture. Ed. by LISA PERFETTI. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. 2005. vii + 222 pp. $65. ISBN 978-o-8I30-2829-3. Lisa Perfetti deserves congratulation. She has discovered a new subject, an aspect of early literaturemost of us have never thought about. She thus spurs enquiry, not least inher comments (p. 2) that 'few textsof themedieval period are known tohave been authored bywomen, and so inmany cases we are looking at emotions described by men', and thatone may thus ask iffemale authors were 'more likely to resist stereo typical discourse on women semotions in theirown writing'. We shall return to this. Her book has an introduction by herself and essays by seven collaborators. E. Ann Matter discusses the spiritual ecstasies of female religious,which learned clerks (p. 28) tried to restrain. James Paxson sets out the construction of female feelings in Hildegard of Bingen, especially as regards literarydevils and personification, which latter (p. 45) 'dissipates ontological solidity and disrupts epistemological stability' (in deManian theory). Elena Carrera analyses emotion and the spirit inMechthild of Magdeburg, Angela of Foligno, and St Teresa ofAvila, the lastbecoming something of a feminist icon,who (p. 84) confounded hermale detractors. In an account of an thropological value, Katharine Goodland examines English miracle plays on Lazarus for their depiction ofwomen's grief.Wendy Pfeffer considers women's emotions in Old French lyrics, especially in anonymous ones that she feels sure (p. I20) are by unknown women trouveres.Kristi Gourlay describes Floripas, thepugnacious Mus limheroine ofFierabras. Sarah Westphal details a bizarre (though fictional) voyeurist incident inSachsenspiegel, set in the legal context of theUSA and medieval Germany. Valerie Allen discusses shame and the female body (with clerical attitudes to it) in Ancrene Wisse and otherMiddle English writing. The editor chose her contributors well. With texts frommany countries, theypro vide a varied and comprehensive survey.They also offer a range of ideas on gender, physiology, psychology, shame, guilt, spirituality, demonology, literary theory, and social order and power. On this theyvariously cite thework ofAristotle, Galen, Au gustine, Aquinas, Savonarola, Ignatius Loyola, Rabelais, Freud, Bakhtin, Barthes, Derrida, Paul deMan, Jacques Lacan, Georges Bataille, and Helene Cixous. Their subject prompts enquiry forother literatures. In theCeltic languages, forex ample, Ceri Lloyd-Morgan and Dafydd Johnston have written on Gwerful Mechain (1462?-I 5oo). Her poems, once ignored but now in the foreground (and including a declaration of female sexuality unique in earlyWelsh), contrast with much inLisa Perfetti's book. One wonders why.Also in Welsh, the twelfth-centuryFour Branches of the Mabinogi (showing signs of female authorship) describe women's emotions with restraint, despite incidents of (supposed) child murder and (genuine) male violence, rape, and adultery. The women of theMabinogi appear as individuals, whether as a chaste wife, a cool-headed and resourceful bride-to-be, a perjurer and her accom plices, a foster-mother, a scorned queen, a rape victim, a child-abuser, or amarried woman falling in lovewith another man. Presented without sensationalism, they still have rarepower and conviction; possibly because theircreator was awoman. Hence, perhaps, theavoidance of that 'stereotypical discourse onwomen's emotions' referred toby Lisa Perfetti. In short, The Representation ofWomen's Emotions supplies a wealth of profitable data. It will be fundamental for the study ofwriting about and by women in the period I200 to i6oo. UNIVERSITY OF NAVARRE, PAMPLONA ANDREW BREEZE ...