Abstract

The Romance of Origins explores the intimate relationship between sexual and historical fantasies in several medieval English texts: Chaucer's Book of the Duchess and Troilus and Criseyde, the anonymous Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Book of Margery Kempe, The Life and the Passion of St. Juliana, and several of the secular Harley Lyrics. In her analysis of works from a wide variety of genres, Gayle Margherita brings feminist and psychoanalytic theories of representation to bear upon both early English literature and contemporary criticism. Her book bridges the gap that has previously separated medieval studies from current theoretical and political concerns within the academy while simultaneously affirming the historical importance and aesthetic value of medieval literary texts in their own right. As a work that is at once feminist and post-structuralist, The Romance of Origins seeks to unveil the gendered politics of reading and writing the past; in her assertion that "the past is never finished," Margherita affirms the political and epistemological significance of our continued engagement with our literary and cultural history. The Romance of Origins will be of interest to students and scholars of medieval English literature, literary theory and criticism, women's studies and cultural studies.