Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Crafting the Witch: Gendering Magic in Medieval and Early Modern England (review)

Crafting the Witch: Gendering Magic in Medieval and Early Modern England (review) Reviews Breuer, Heidi, Crafting the Witch: Gendering Magic in Medieval and Early Modern England (Studies in Medieval History and Culture), New York, Routledge, 2009; hardback; pp. 202; R.R.P. US$95.00; ISBN 9780415977616. The theme of this book is less the gendering of magic in medieval and Early Modern England than the ancestry of the witch of contemporary American imagination. In her preface, Heidi Breuer asserts her feminist intentions and defends her decision to address a wide audience in an accessible style and to venture beyond her own field of medieval and Early Modern literature in order to give her textual analysis a social context. She is largely successful in these admittedly risky endeavours, though a certain amount of patchiness is the inevitable price. The introductory chapter on good and bad witches sets the scene with some personal anecdotes, a brief theoretical context courtesy of Lacan and Judith Butler and a general explanation of what is meant by magic. Next comes a gender analysis of Chrétien de Troyes, Marie de France, Geoffrey of Monmouth and Layamon. Unsurprisingly, these literary works are revealed as complex plays on gender relations within the context of the problem of excessive male aggression. The binary http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Parergon Australian & New Zealand Association of Medieval & Early Modern Studies, Inc. (ANAZAMEMS, Inc.)

Crafting the Witch: Gendering Magic in Medieval and Early Modern England (review)

Davidson, Lola Sharon.
Parergon , Volume 27 (1) – Jul 14, 2010
Download PDF
2 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/australian-new-zealand-association-of-medieval-early-modern-studies-inc-anazamems-inc/crafting-the-witch-gendering-magic-in-medieval-and-early-modern-6GhVS8nsWv

References

References for this paper are not available at this time. We will be adding them shortly, thank you for your patience.

Publisher
Australian & New Zealand Association of Medieval & Early Modern Studies, Inc. (ANAZAMEMS, Inc.)
Copyright
Copyright © Australian & New Zealand Association of Medieval & Early Modern Studies, Inc. (ANAZAMEMS, Inc.)
ISSN
1832-8334
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Reviews Breuer, Heidi, Crafting the Witch: Gendering Magic in Medieval and Early Modern England (Studies in Medieval History and Culture), New York, Routledge, 2009; hardback; pp. 202; R.R.P. US$95.00; ISBN 9780415977616. The theme of this book is less the gendering of magic in medieval and Early Modern England than the ancestry of the witch of contemporary American imagination. In her preface, Heidi Breuer asserts her feminist intentions and defends her decision to address a wide audience in an accessible style and to venture beyond her own field of medieval and Early Modern literature in order to give her textual analysis a social context. She is largely successful in these admittedly risky endeavours, though a certain amount of patchiness is the inevitable price. The introductory chapter on good and bad witches sets the scene with some personal anecdotes, a brief theoretical context courtesy of Lacan and Judith Butler and a general explanation of what is meant by magic. Next comes a gender analysis of Chrétien de Troyes, Marie de France, Geoffrey of Monmouth and Layamon. Unsurprisingly, these literary works are revealed as complex plays on gender relations within the context of the problem of excessive male aggression. The binary

Journal

Parergon – Australian & New Zealand Association of Medieval & Early Modern Studies, Inc. (ANAZAMEMS, Inc.)

Published: Jul 14, 2010

There are no references for this article.