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"Withoute Words": The Medieval Lady Dreams In The Assembly Of Ladies, Colleen Donnelly

Quidditas

Two poems, The Assembly of Ladies and The Floure and the Leafe, are unique among Middle English dream visions due to the gender of their narrators; both are narrated by women. In his edition of these two poems, Derek Pearsall argues that whether they were told by women or not is really of little importance. There are many examples of men, such as Lydgate and Deschamps, writing as women. However, while men may speak for women in other types of poems, a woman narrator of Middle English dream vision survives only in these two poems. Moreover, as Alexandra Barratt …