Literary Misogyny and Praise of Women in the Middle Ages: Commented Readings of Medieval Texts

This book examines, in a critical, historical, and analytical perspective, major works that represent the praise of women and the misogynist tradition in medieval literature, looking for formal and thematic aspects of these two kinds of writings on women in the Middle Ages. After a comprehensive introduction about the medieval view of maleficent women, the book explores misogyny in the Church Fathers’ literature and their medieval legacy, ranging from religious fundamental authors like St. Jerome, St. Augustine, and St. Thomas Aquinas to secular polemic types such as Andreas Capellanus. The book then discusses major medieval literary works that praise women as a kind of ‘response’ to their misogynist counterpart, represented by the anonymous works The Thrush and the Nightingale, the Response to Richard de Fournival’s Li Bestiaire d’Amour, The Southern Passion, and Dives and Pauper, and prominent literary names such as Marbod of Rennes, Peter Abelard, Albertano of Brescia, and John Gower.