Feminism in Literature | Women and Women's Writings from Antiquity Through the Middle Ages - Alexandra Barratt (Essay Date 1992)

ALEXANDRA BARRATT (ESSAY DATE 1992)

SOURCE: Barratt, Alexandra. "The Fourteenth Century and Earlier." In Women's Writing in Middle English, edited by Alexandra Barratt, pp. 27-136. Essex: Long-man, 1992.

In the following excerpt from her collection of medieval women's writing, Barratt briefly summarizes the lives and careers of Marguerita Porete, Elizabeth of Hungary, Birgitta of Sweden, and Julian of Norwich. The critic also provides concise commentary on the major works of these writers that have appeared in Middle English.

Marguerite Porete

Marguerite Porete was a late thirteenth-century béguine from Hainault in Flanders (béguines were laywomen vowed to chastity who were self-supporting and led a disciplined life, either at home, in convents or in béguinages, i.e. settlements or special areas within a town). Some time between 1296 and 1306 she wrote a lengthy and obscure mystical...

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