Honors Program
Honors in English
Date of Award
5-2015
Thesis Professor(s)
Thomas Crofts
Thesis Professor Department
Literature and Language
Thesis Reader(s)
Thomas Crofts, Ana Grinberg, Ginette Blackhart
Abstract
It is undeniable that literature reflects much about the society that produces it. The give-and-take relationship between a society and its literature is especially interesting when medieval texts are considered. Because most medieval plots and characters are variants of existing stories, the ways that the portrayals change has the potential to reveal much about the differences between medieval societies separated by distance and time. Changes to the treatment of these recurring characters and their stories can reveal how the attitudes of medieval society changed over time. Perceptions of magic and attitudes toward its female practitioners, both real and fictional, changed drastically throughout the Middle Ages among clergy members and the ruling class. Historically, as attitudes toward women became more negative, they were increasingly prohibited from receiving a formal education and from gaining or maintaining positions traditionally associated with feminine magical power, such as healer, midwife, or wise woman. As the power of the Church grew and attitudes changed throughout the Middle Ages, women’s power in almost all areas of life experienced a proportional decrease. Using a combination of historical and literary sources, this paper will explore whether this decrease in power is evident in literary portrayals of magical female characters in medieval literature. Specifically, it will examine the agency and potency, or the intrinsic motivation and effectiveness within the story, respectively, of female characters within medieval narratives, comparing the characters to their earlier iterations. This research will offer a unique perspective on the roles of magical women in medieval literature.
Document Type
Honors Thesis - Open Access
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Recommended Citation
McGill, Anna, "Magic and Femininity as Power in Medieval Literature" (2015). Undergraduate Honors Theses. Paper 293. https://dc.etsu.edu/honors/293
Copyright
Copyright by the authors.