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Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality
Medieval allegory; personification; gender; the feminine divine
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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Woman Personified: A Theoretical Framework For The Female Gender Of Personifications In Medieval Literature, Dinah Wouters
Woman Personified: A Theoretical Framework For The Female Gender Of Personifications In Medieval Literature, Dinah Wouters
Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality
This article wants to provide a comprehensive answer to the question of why the majority of personifications in medieval literature are women. Especially, it seeks to refute the notion that female personifications of positive concepts would somehow escape or reverse the dominant gender ideology of its time. It brings together the different theories that have been proposed by scholars and situates them within a common framework. The article distinguish three levels to which these theories refer: these are, first, the level of the literal or the personification as a woman; second, the level of the figurative, or the idea that …