The Discourse of Enclosure: Representing Women in Old English Literature

Examines representations of women and femininity in Old English poetry and prose.

2001 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title

Exploring Old English texts ranging from Beowulf to Ælfric's Lives of Saints, this book examines ways that women's monastic, material, and devotional practices in Anglo-Saxon England shaped literary representations of women and femininity. Horner argues that these representations derive from a "discourse" of female monastic enclosure, based on the increasingly strict rules...