Drawing on insights from feminist scholarship and gender studies, this thesis offers a new
reading of selected medieval German texts with a special emphasis on the negotiation of gender
and power. All three parts of the thesis demonstrate how the use of modern theories helps us to
re-examine a medieval text's implications and ethical values, and to reconsider traditional views
of the text.
Part One focuses on the discussion of gender boundaries. Didactic and fictional texts,
such as Thomasin von Zerclaere's Der welsche Gast and Ulrich von Liechtenstein's
Frauendienst, show that violations of gender boundaries and the questioning of the traditional
power relationship between the genders are crucial to the textual negotiation of masculinity and
femininity. As I demonstrate in Part Two, the unequal relationship between men and women is
especially important for the system of male homosocial bonding underlying medieval society.
Examples of the physical and symbolic exchange of women and their favours are offered by
didactic texts, such as Marquard vom Stein's Der Ritter vom Turn, and fictional texts, such as the
Nibelungenlied. Aspects of this exchange are not solely related to medieval marriage practices,
but are also reflected in courtly rituals, such as "frouwen schouwen" (watching the ladies). The
importance of the conventionally beautiful female body as an object of exchange becomes
obvious in Part Three, where I examine encounters between Christian knights and women
defying the norms of feminine beauty. Here I focus on female figures that are defined as "doubly
Other": both in their relationship to the masculine Self, and in their relationship to the ideal of
medieval Christian femininity. Texts such as Wolfdietrich B and Der Strieker's Die Konigin vom Mohrenland show how the negotiation of gender and power assumes a new dimension in light
male encounters with Wild Women, heathen women, "supernatural" women and old women,
where the male partner often has to struggle to uphold his privileged masculine position.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/9489 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Hempen, Daniela |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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