Against a background of traditional patriarchal anxieties and constraints in regard to women's speech, Bodden's important new study explores the transgressive nature of women's voices, the cultural authorization of bold speech, and agency that women were able to exercise especially within the law courts and in mysticism. This insightful study will be of particular interest to scholars in Medieval and Early European Studies and Women's Studies. - Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg, Professor of History in the Department of Liberal Studies, DCS, and Medieval and Women's Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Bodden offers the reader abeautifully conceptualized analysis of the engendering politics of language in medieval and early modern England. In so doing,herbook joins the ranks of such classics as Michel de Certeau on mystic speech and Helen Solterer on disputing women.In engaging with the serpent, she emerges as a serpent whisperer. - Kathleen Biddick,Professor of History, Temple University