Elizabeth's Letters

This was my favorite read for this week. Actually it may have been my favorite work yet. Her letters and Response ot the parliament was hilarious. She was one feisty lady. She certainly said what she was thinking. I guess it would have been easier for her to do this than a lower class woman, but it was still remarkable for this time period. She felt that she would marry when and if she felt like it. She sure put them in their place. I would love to have been there to see the reaction to her letters when they reached parliament. The looks on the men's faces would have been priceless! Also, the end note of how it took the mesenger three drafts in order to word her letter delicately enough to read it aloud was so funny. She must have been so furious when she initially recieved their letters trying to hurrying her to marry. This was my favorite because I was continually laughing at her comments throuought the letter about how abrupt and uncuth she was. Loved it. 4 stars****

Anne Askew

Wow. Now this was an interesting read. I had never heard of her until this class. I found it amazing how she stood up for her beliefs which ultimitely led to her being burned at the stake. It's amazing how someone can commit to something that strongly that even being tortured and the thought of a painful death still doesn't detere them from their faith. Very deep. This was somewhat similar to waht I've been studing in another class about Danton during the French Revolution and how he and his collegues ended up being beheaded for their views on the politics of this time. It really shows you how much things have improved since then. Incredible.

Margery Kempe

Well,
This, for me, was definetly not a page turner. I am not much a religious person so trying to get through this piece became very difficult. Although I don't truly understand this sort of lifestyle that she is writing about, I do respect it. Her thoughts on God having both masculine and femine attributes was rathering shocking considering the time period in which she was writing. To me this piece felt like more of a church service than a good read but to each their own. It was still rather interesting. The "Women interpreting Scripture int he Middle Ages" was very helpful. Although it gave only a brief description of how women lived, the beguines and Julian of Norwich, it gave a good insight into how women, especially religious women functioned at that time.

The Wife's Lament

First of all, I just wanted to apologize about how late my first entry is. I am just now really familiarizing myself with blogging. I am very impressed however with everyone else's blogs and how insightful everyone is. I just wanted to comment on one of the reading's from our last class. I found The Wife's Lament the most interesting of our readings as it wasn't particularily clear exactly what the author was trying to say as it had to be translated. This was somewhat unique as everyone's able to draw thier own conclusions as to what the story may be about. When I first read the text I thought that the husband had to leave the country for somekind of battle, but after reading it again and discussing it in class, it seems that maybe he was forced from the country. It is such a sad story for the woie as she is left alone in the world yearning for her husband that either can't or refuses to be with her. I can't even imagine how hard it would have been to live in those days.
I also enjoyed the piece by Christine de Pizan. Although her idea of a women's Utopia sounds nice for a while, I think we would miss the men. Maybe not in her day, but iff there were no rain we would not appreciate the sun.

.Marie de France's Lanval was an enjoyable read for me. I like the stories of arthur, Lancelot and Guinivere so this was a pretty good read. I wasn't expecting this as I ahve never read Marie de France before. I'm glad I did. She definetly wasn't using the master's tools for this one, as she is using this tale to publish her own opinions about the king. Very sneeky. She starts to put doubt in people's minds about Henry's reign