Women and Literature in Britain 1150 1500

This collection of essays focuses on the questions of women''s access to a written culture and their representation in literature in late medieval Britain. It explores women''s engagement with Anglo-Norman English Welsh and Latin and addresses such issues as orality and literacy and women''s exclusion from a written tradition. It considers the historical evidence for women''s activity as writers patrons and readers and examines the representation of women within different literary genres--both secular and religious--their possession or lack of power and their roles as lovers mothers and saints.