Double Agents
Women and Clerical Culture in Anglo-Saxon England
Distributed for University of Wales Press
First published in 2001, Double Agents was the first book-length study of women in Anglo-Saxon written culture that took on the insights provided by contemporary critical and feminist theory, and it quickly established itself as a standard. Now available again, it complicates the exclusion of women from the historical record of Anglo-Saxon England by tackling the deeper questions behind how the feminine is modeled, used, and made metaphoric in Anglo-Saxon texts, even when the women themselves are absent.
“Whether they are interrogating the scholarly narrative of Cædmon as the ‘father of English poetry,’ investigating the historical record for feminine literacy or considering the female saint’s body, both real and metaphorical, Lees and Overing apply crucial pressure to some of the most common assumptions about Anglo-Saxon culture.”
“Double Agents is an innovative and provocative study, adventurous in its choice of texts and stimulating in its lively and detailed engagement with them. The authors’ exploration of the complex relation of the feminine, orality and literacy will undoubtedly influence the direction of future critical enquiry.”
Series Editor’s Preface
Preface
Acknowledgements, 2001
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
1 Patristic Maternity: Bede, Hild and Cultural Procreation
2 Orality, Femininity and the Disappearing Trace in Early Anglo-Saxon England
3 Literacy and Gender in Later Anglo-Saxon England
4 Figuring the Body: Gender, Performance, Hagiography
5 Pressing Hard on the ‘Breasts’ of Scripture: Metaphor and the Symbolic
Bibliography
IndexYou may purchase this title at these fine bookstores. Outside the USA, see our international sales information.
