Return to search

Gender, texts and context in the Old English Exeter Book

An examination of historical and textual evidence supporting the thesis that the tenth-century Old English Exeter Book (Exeter Dean and Chapter MS. 3501) may have been compiled for, or even in, an Anglo-Saxon female monastic foundation or mixed-sex double house. The Exeter Book poems, many with female subjects, have been studied extensively, but rarely treated as components that unite to form a deliberately compiled, cohesive anthology. This study examines four main subjects: women's participation in both Latin and vernacular textual culture in the early Middle Ages in past and present scholarship; the history and structure of the codex; a summary of evidence indicating the possibility of the Exeter Book's production in or for a woman's monastic foundation or a double-house; a survey of the female figures in the Book and the effect of a "gendered" reading on the study of the codex as a unified document.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.23346
Date January 1995
CreatorsNordoff-Perusse, Teresa Kim
ContributorsBray, Dorothy Ann (advisor)
PublisherMcGill University
Source SetsLibrary and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation
Formatapplication/pdf
CoverageMaster of Arts (Department of English.)
RightsAll items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated.
Relationalephsysno: 001506761, proquestno: MM12064, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest.

Page generated in 0.0026 seconds