Transformative Waters in Late-Medieval Literature: From Aelred of Rievaulx to The Book of Margery Kempe

A consideration of the metaphor of water in religious literature, especially in relation to women.

Women are frequently depicted as unpredictable, difficult to categorise and prone to transformation in medieval religious writings. Water is equally elusive: rivers, wells and seas slip and slide out of the readers' grasp as they alter in metaphorical meaning.

This book considers a large span of watery images in a small cluster of late-medieval devotional writings by and for women, in order to e...