Virtue and Venom traces the history of a previously neglected
genre, the catalog of women, from its origins in Greece and Rome to
the late Middle Ages, revealing the catalogs' considerable
importance as cultural documents of the evolution of the Western
definition of womankind. These catalogs were simple listings of
past heroines, sometimes described in extended biographies,
sometimes merely enumerated by name. Catalog heroines often
appeared in familiar guises—anonymous mothers of great men,
fascinating seductresses, self-effacing spouses, abused victims of
love, strong and brilliant achievers. Written by some of the finest
authors of the ages, the catalogs fulfilled important functions. By
defining women typologically, they instilled stereotypes in the
popular mind, and by illustrating proper and improper feminine
conduct they reinforced the late medieval link between literature
and ethics. Despite the repetitive form of the genre, the catalogs
were extremely flexible, able to illustrate different, even
antithetical views of femininity—invoking the past as authority or
reinterpreting the past in an attempt to associate femininity with
changing cultural values. Thus, as well as being the vehicle for
the transmission of knowledge, the form could also be manipulated
to contest authority, in the guise of invoking it, and present new
paradigms. Glenda McLeod examines a host of catalogs, including
those of Homer, Hesiod, Vergil, Ovid, Juvenal, Plutarch, St.
Jerome, and Jean de Meun, but gives special attention to
Boccaccio's De claris mulieribus and Chaucer's Legend of Good
Women. She then shows how the tradition ultimately produced the
first major defense of womankind in Christine de Pizan's Cité des
Dames. This book will be of interest to classicists, medievalists,
Renaissance and feminist scholars, and anyone interested in the
misogynist tradition in the West and the response it engendered.
General
Imprint: |
The University of Michigan Press
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Release date: |
1991 |
Authors: |
Glenda McLeod
|
Dimensions: |
229 x 152mm (L x W) |
Format: |
Paperback
|
Pages: |
178 |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-472-75175-4 |
Categories: |
Books
|
LSN: |
0-472-75175-1 |
Barcode: |
9780472751754 |
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