We will be using
www.turnitin.com for our assignments, so
that you can easily check to see that you are documenting your work correctly.
You can find instructions on how to use this service at
http://www.winthrop.edu/dacus/About/studentTIIinstructions.htm.
Our class ID# for the service is 1168514 and our class password is heloise
Question paper #1:
As we read the classical and early Christian writers, we see that the case defending women is made as vigorously as the case defaming women. Why, then, do you think the defamers were the vocal majority? Don’t stop with easy answers like “Men had all the power” or “It’s religion’s fault” but try to probe more deeply into the question, evaluate the competing claims and support, and construct a preliminary answer (it will undoubtedly evolve over the course of the semester).
Question paper #2:
A simple question: What did you learn from the group oral presentations that enriched your reading of the Lais of Marie de France? What ideas, customs, or practices were still not clear to you as well? Please give specific examples.
Question paper #3
This week’s readings focus on the arguments for virginity as a spiritually superior way of life for medieval women, even perhaps a heroic choice in the face of the world’s temptations and a way for women to exercise some power or control over their lives. Reflect on the cultural implications of these arguments, bringing into play the earlier contentions of the defamers/defenders about women’s sexuality and their capacity for self-control. (Yes, I know, this is a very free-ranging question. It’s deliberate. You’ll find out why in a week or so.)
Question paper #4
How does Christine de Pizan see herself as an author? Does she write from a position of experience or from auctoritee or from somewhere in between? Consider her use of rhetorical stances, her use of examples, her style, etc., as you work out this answer.
Question paper #5
The first literary critics to write about Margery Kempe, Albert C. Baugh and Kemp Malone, writing in The Literary History of England in 1947, said this of her:
Of the quiet sense of oneness with God experienced by other mystics Margery Kempe says little. Instead, she reports at length many conversations with Christ, and mentions other occasions on which she was spoken to by the Virgin Mary, St. Peter, St. Paul, St. Katharine, "or whatever saint in heaven she had devotion to." She appears to have been quite susceptible to the power of suggestion, and her experiences often recall those of [Richard] Rolle, Julian of Norwich, and other mystics whose writings had been read to her....Each reader will form his own opinion of Margery's neurotic temperament and of the extent to which her eccentricities and hysterical outbursts were the result of genuine religious feeling. Certainly her boisterous weeping and sobbing, her "roaring" and writings would not have found favor with the deeply spiritual, albeit outspoken, author of The Cloud of Unknowing. But as a human document and for its many glimpses of medieval life, the Book of Margery Kempe has great interest, and as time goes on will reach a widening circle of readers.
So here's the question: Do you think this is a fair assessment of Margery's strategies and achievements? Pointing to specific evidence, why or why not?
If you would like to look at The Cloud of Unknowing, the entire text is online in a modern English version; the introduction begins at http://www.ccel.org/u/unknowing/cloud01.htm.
If you would like to learn more about Richard Rolle, you can start with this brief introduction: http://occawlonline.pearsoned.com/bookbind/pubbooks/damrosch_awl/chapter98/medialib/IM/1Middle/18-RichardRolle_IM.pdf
You might also be interested in this note on Stansbury's web page: http://www.holycross.edu/departments/visarts/projects/kempe/text/gloss4.html