Medieval Women's Visionary Literature

By Petroff and Elizabeth Alvilda Petroff

Book Overview

These pages capture a thousand years of devotional and visionary writing by medieval women. The writers come from all different backgrounds and traditions, and they include founders of religious communities, hermits and recluses, wives and mothers, wandering teachers, heretics and reformers. What they all had in common was a belief that they had been chosen to speak, and here we have the evidence of their visions and experiences of the divine.

Covering a span of time from late antiquity to the 15th century, the writings include examples of lyric poetry, drama (including the first play written by a woman), epics, saints' lives, and letters. as well as some newly invented genres such as the spiritual autobiography, the guide to prayer, progression of visions, and in Inquisition depositions. A new portrait of the female writer in the Middle Ages emerges, a more accurate portrait than was ever before possible, as many of these texts have either been out of print or are here translated for the first time. We see women writers of the Middle Ages doing what they did best: writing devotional, visionary, and erotic literature from a very personal viewpoint, and what they say to the modern reader has much to do with nature of creativity and the creative experience of women.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195037111
• ISBN13: 9780195037111
• Release Date: March 1986
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 414 Pages
• Weight: 1.44 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.5" x 0.9" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

Perfect Introduction to Medieval Women's Visionary Writings

Petroff's compilation of visionary writings is wonderful in its breath both in terms of time and women. It stretches from St. Perpetua to Mary of Nijmeghen. In addition to beautiful selections of visionary literature, Petroff provides intelligent introductions which enable a novice reader such as myself to place the women writers in their contexts.

A classic for both content and commentary

This book is THE starting place for those seeking to understand the variety of women's religious writings and experiences in the medieval west. The chosen texts are very good themselves, and Petroff's commentary is very helpful to modern readers seeking to understand a sometimes alien discourse. I use this as a textbook in religious studies and women's history courses for university freshmen and sophomores and get consistently good comments from my students about the book.