The master and Minerva : disputing women in French medieval culture / Helen Solterer.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 269-293) and index.

pt. 1. Profiles in mastery: Ovidian and Aristotelian figures -- The trials of discipleship: Le Roman de la poire and Le Dit de la panthère d'amours -- The master at work: Richard de Fournival's Bestiaire d'amour -- pt. 2. Proliferating responses: Contrary to what is said: The Response au Bestiaire d'amour and the case for a woman's response -- Defamation and the Livre de leesce: the problem of a sycophantic response -- Christine's way: The Querelle du Roman de la rose and the ethics of political response -- The libelous affair: The Querelle del la Belle Dame sans merci and the prospects for a legal response -- Coda: Clotilde de Surville and the latter-day history of the woman's response.

Print version record.

Annotation Can words do damage? For medieval culture, the answer was unambiguously yes. And as Helen Solterer contends, in French medieval culture the representation of women exemplified the use of injurious language.<br />Solterer investigates the debates over women between masters and their disciples. Across a broad range of Old French literature to the early modern Querelle des femmes , she shows how the figure of the female respondent became an instrument for disputing the dominant models of representing women. The female respondent exploited the criterion of injurious language that so preoccupied medieval masters, and she charged master poets ethically and legally with libel. Solterer's work thus illuminates an early, decisive chapter in the history of defamation.

English.

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