This volume focuses on the literary and artistic exploration of female friendship in various geographical contexts, spanning the centuries from the medieval period until the present. The essays address the intense female bonding in world literature as a universal human need for intimacy, sense of belonging, and purpose. The main focus is on the reevaluation of friendships between women, which have been traditionally less epitomized than those between men. The authors of this volume demonstrate how the emotional unions of women offer compelling insights to various historical and contemporary societies, helping us understand gender relations, traditions, family life, and community values.

This book is suitable for ages 7-14. The Middle Ages was a period of great scientific and technological advancement. Trade increased as towns began to grow, and medieval people found more efficient ways of doing work by inventing new machines. The inventions of the heavy plow, horseshoes, and harnesses resulted in more food to eat, and more crops for trading. Easy-to-understand text and brilliant full-colour illustrations will help children follow the advancements in medicine, military weapons, and astrology up until 1500. The topics include: the power provided by watermills and windmills for laundering clothes, casting iron, and pressing olive oil; how the development of textiles such as silks, wool, and leather affected trade with China and the Middle East in the 1200s; how African craftworkers worked with metal, and the bronze and gold sculptures and jewellery that they made; medieval peoples belief in the four humours, and the surgical procedures and herbal remedies used; and astrological inventions such as China's water clock.

This text celebrates the career of Ann Dooley, one of Canada's most eminent Celtic medievalists. Dooley's colleagues at the University of Toronto, her former doctoral students and some of the most prominent scholars in medieval Celtic studies honour her work with 16 original essays reflecting her teaching and interests: early Irish and Welsh literature and history, literary theory and feminist approaches to medieval Celtic literature.

The late medieval Digby "Mary Magdalene" play is dominated by its female protagonist. The playwright seems deliberately to have crafted an especially complex version of the popular saint: a multivalent female figure who both challenges boundaries and presents an exemplar of active, virtuous womanhood. This study begins by examining the play's use of imagery common in lyric poetry. Phrases from Latin scripture, liturgy and hymns accentuate the depiction of a protagonist who represents a meshing of genres, conventions, languages and modes of signification. The play is also a fusion of romantic and spiritual adventure which deploys two major romance memes, ' creating a figure who redefines the romance heroine as both Lady and Hero. In echoing the "fabliaux" and other comic intertexts, the play straddles generic boundaries to explore contemporary social issues. Finally, the play's use of space and stagecraft highlights Mary's ability to defy conventional gender boundaries. Since the Digby playwright demonstrates a broad knowledge of secular literature, this study situates his Mary Magdalene within the landscape of literary intertexts and contemporary concerns that might have shaped his thinking. It examines the ways in which the audience might have responded to a liminal figure who, marked by ambivalence and paradox, occupies the space between earth and heaven, ordinary time and eternity, sensuality and sanctity.