Writing Women Saints in Anglo-Saxon England

Review “Edited by a most distinguished Anglo-Saxonist, this collection features many thoughtful emerging and established scholarly voices in the field.” (Clare A. Lees, Department of English, King’s College, London)“The collection is a state-of-the art exploration of the ‘saintly feminine’ in Old English prose. The essays range widely, positioning discussion of the topic within wider contexts.” (Jane Roberts, Institute of English Studies, University of London) Product Description The twelve essays in this collection advance the contemporary study of the women saints of Anglo-Saxon England by challenging received wisdom and offering alternative methodologies. The work embraces a number of different scholarly approaches, from codicological study to feminist theory. While some contributions are dedicated to the description and reconstruction of female lives of saints and their cults, others explore the broader ideological and cultural investments of the literature.The volume concentrates on four major areas: the female saint in the Old English Martyrology, genre including hagiography and homelitic writing, motherhood and chastity, and differing perspectives on lives of virgin martyrs. The essays reveal how saints’ lives that exist on the apparent margins of orthodoxy actually demonstrate a successful literary challenge extending the idea of a holy life. About the Author Paul E. Szarmach is an emeritus professor of English and Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University and a visiting scholar at the University of California-Berkeley.