Why Medieval Women Writers Belong in the Canon

Dr. Richard Scott Nokes over at Unlocked Wordhoard was kind enough to send his readers over here to read my post on Aethelflaed. I am thankful to him for that, and for linking to me quite early in my blogging experience.

He also voiced an opinion in that post that I've heard quite often, and almost always from male medievalists. That opinion being that he gets angry about some medieval women writers whose works are in the canon merely because they're women(he feels), and not based on quality of the writing itself. He offered the name of one medieval woman writer he despises, and one he admires as examples. To be clear: I'm certain he doesn't wish to expunge women from the medieval canon, but gets frustrated with writing he considers unworthy of canon status. (I've already said that I wish the Austrians could have taken care of our little Papa problem, so I do comprehend annoyance with "bad writers" one must read.)

I was, at first, a little astonished that any mention of medieval women writers (pro or con) would come up in a post about a medieval woman warrior. There were warrior poets in the medieval period, but Aethelflaed doesn't qualify. So, that was weird. I have a feeling my "Medieval Women I Adore" series title triggered a pet peeve of his, which then caused him to comment in a way that triggered a pet peeve of mine. As I always say, "Þæs ofereode, þisses swa maeg." People look at me funny when I say that, but I still say it at least a few times a week. (Got it from Deor. It means "That has gone by, so may this.")

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Professor Nokes and I probably have different definitions of what should qualify for canonical writing. He likely considers "beautiful writing" the qualification that should matter most when making these choices. He's probably expressing the frustration of trying to know about, and teach about, a full millenium's worth of literature from at least the whole of one continent (but maybe two or three). Tough, sometimes painful, choices must be made in creating a syllabus when that much time and space have to be covered. I understand that, and I sympathize, but I don't agree that the way to make more room for medieval writing in the hearts of our students is to further narrow their view of what medieval writing was. As frustrating as it is trying to wrangle the highlights of a millenium into 14 or 15 weeks, we really have very limited corpera to work from.

But I promised an argument in defense of medieval women writers with this post title, and I should get down to it. There are a number of reasons I consider women writers of the medieval period necessary to any study of the literature, regardless of their ability to write "beautifully."
The most important is my desire for as much information as I can get from the age, and differing voices may give me that information. Just as I want to know if somebody digs up an Arabian coin in Liecestershire, I want to know what the nuns/princesses/queens thought about politics, and religion, and their lives. I want to know how they expressed themselves. I lament the loss of lower-class and pagan writing from the period because that lack leaves hated blind spots in my information. I'm happy to know that Hlewagastir Holtingar made that golden drinking horn, and used alliteration in marking it. I would be thrilled to have evidence of a peasant farmer writing a song to sing to his children at night. Even if the song were pure crap, it would contain some evidence of what a peasant farmer thought about -- or wanted his children to think about -- and how he expressed himself. I think we would all benefit from knowing a little something about the context of the medieval citizens' lives, and the more of their words we can come by, the better our understanding will be.

We also need to realize that we come to texts as readers with our own social contexts in place, and our own expectations about what's "good" or "interesting" writing. I don't mind revealing that I read Homer for the first time thinking "If this idiot describes one more fighter as 'like a wolf,' or a 'lion, or a 'bear,' I'm pitching this damned book into the fireplace." As a (then)twentieth-century young woman, I didn't appreciate repetitive imagery. Does Homer not deserve a place in the canon? I'm not a great fan of euphuistic writing either. Must Lyly go? I find the 'midwife' comment at the end of Donne's "To his Mistress Going to Bed" takes a poem that was getting very sexy and makes it just plain gross. Should that work be stricken? Obviously I'm not arguing for the removal of these works, but I am saying that we cannot be so quick to say what we find "good" is the marker for what we should study.

For the past several centuries, we have been trained as readers to accept certain aspects of literature as "good," and "interesting," precisely because of what has been let in the canon before we ever got here. And, before we got here, what was let in the canon was almost always literature of the men, by the men, and for the men. So, when we read the mystical writing of Julian of Norwich or Hildegard von Bingen, we think "This is different, it doesn't follow the rules of good writing as I've been taught them. It must be poorly written." I suppose this experience is heightened when women writers write only about women's experiences. We don't want the view from the wall(Mauerschau), we want the "action." Who cares what happens at home, at the village market, or in one's mind? The important stuff happens on the battlefield, at the place of business, or in the church. We've been taught to believe that, just as we've been taught to believe that iambic pentameter is superior to ballad verses. The Greeks and Romans considered comedy far inferior to tragedy, but Aristophanes holds a dearer place in my heart than Aeschylus, and I enjoy Apuleius much more than Tacitus. That doesn't mean that the men I enjoy should be privileged in the canon. I'm a smart-ass, and I like reading fellow smart-asses. I also like reading fellow women. Find me a woman who wrote smart-assed alliterative verse, and I'll carry her work with me until I die. I don't expect everyone to do the same. Our canon of "great literature" has to include comedy and tragedy, prose and poetry, and men and women, but not everybody has to love everything equally. Unfortunately, as teachers, we all have to teach some stuff we hate sometimes. I have even taught !#$%^&* Hemingway and !#$% Salinger. Do you think I enjoyed that? I say thee, nay!

I grant that this attitude of mine doesn't help narrow stuff down so that it fits neatly into a syllabus, but literature across a millenium won't ever fit neatly. As long as we're dealing with students who will only take one or two courses in medieval literature, we have to make choices. We also have to know why we're making those choices, and what inclusion or exclusion really means. I may hate/revile/loathe certain works, but I'm neither a man nor a prince, nor was meant to be. The work doesn't speak to me, but it does speak to some of my students and it does tell one tiny bit of the greater story. I owe my students that piece of the story, even if I do drink a little more heavily for a week or two as I teach it.

And, finally, an anecdote I can't resist sharing:
One day at my undergraduate institution, a professor argued to me that certain women writers shouldn't be studied because really good literature speaks to the human experience in it's entirety, not just to one gender. He even offered examples of women who had written "well," and should be studied more. I'll never forget the expression on his face when I feigned epic upset at having to eliminate all those volumes of battle poetry produced at a time when only men wrote and fought from my reading list. All the political writing that centered on the upper classes had to go, too. My God, I said, even The Sorrows of Young Werther is no good because it is all about a man in love, women will never be men in love. The argument ended there.

[Update: In response to Professor Nokes' take on this post, I've added a bolded phrase in front of my (already present) assertion that PROFESSOR NOKES DOES NOT FEEL ALL WOMEN WRITERS SHOULD BE HELD OUT OF THE CANON. This post is a defense of those women whose works he WOULD, if he had his druthers, eliminate. It is also a call for us all to think about why we make certain value judgements about literature. ]