The Sovereignty of Wirral Women

Date of Award

5-9-2026

Degree Name

M.A. in English

Department

Department of English

Advisor/Chair

Miriamne Krummel

Abstract

Women have little agency in the hierarchy, but a handful of writers, perhaps influenced by historical queens who gain agency performing as males and donning armor, show their readers the flaws in the patriarchy and how to subvert said patriarchy in their stories and analogies. Hélène Cixous asserts that many fear what women have to say and fear hearing women speak their minds, so they are silenced because they speak a truth that society does not want to hear spoken; Cixous demands those truths be said, and the medieval authors speak these truths. Laurie Finke discusses how women’s writing both encodes and resists cultural representation of chivalry in 12th century France. Works like Marie de France’s lai Lanval, Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Clerk’s Tale, Chaucer’s Wife of Bath, Prose Merlin, and The Weddyng of Syr Gawen and Dame Ragnell speak in defiance to the patriarchy and the rules that the men use to contain women’s movement in society. Is this a resistance to the patriarchy? Though there are few historical documentations on these writers, I aim to illustrate how their tales are a testament to women who find agency in education and cautious story play to remind people of the problems with patriarchy.

Keywords

Literature, Medieval Literature

Comments

OCLC No. 1589231822

Rights Statement

Copyright 2026, author.

Link to Full Text

Share

COinS
 
 
 

Links