Hortus inversus: Domineering ladies and their medieval gardens.
Item
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Title
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Hortus inversus: Domineering ladies and their medieval gardens.
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Identifier
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AAI3115227
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identifier
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3115227
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Creator
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Augspach, Elizabeth A.
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Contributor
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Adviser: William Coleman
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Date
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2004
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Literature, Comparative | Women's Studies | Literature, Medieval
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Abstract
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In medieval literature and art the garden is a social place of refreshment, where knights and ladies interact. While a lady's status does not suffer from lingering within the garden's walls, a knight may not stay too long in a garden enjoying the pleasure that the company of his lady affords, for to do so would be detrimental to his good name. The proper space of a knight is the forest, where he confronts danger and overcomes it. The lady, on the other hand, awaits her knight from within the protective walls of the castle and the garden. She is protected by the owner of the garden and of the castle, be it her father, her brother or her husband.;Some ladies, however, do not allow themselves to be circumscribed to a particular space. They choose to become outcasts and create their own gardens. Needless to say, their gardens are unconventional. They exhibit supernatural qualities such as a wall of air, delicious music, flowers and fruit that are always perfect. The motives these ladies (or sorceresses) have are varied, but the result is always the same: the gardens become a dangerous trap that threatens the very fabric of society, for the ladies have overturned the God-given hierarchal order that requires men to lead and women to follow, men to own and women to be owned.;Only one garden owned by a woman escapes censure. Although her garden exhibits many of the supernatural qualities of the subversive ladies, the garden of the Virgin Mary remains refreshingly familiar and poses no threat to the knight. Unlike the sorceress, the Virgin Mary allows men to enter and leave at will.;The purpose of the study is to examine the ongoing conversation between religious and subversive secular gardens of romance, based on the assumption that the Virgin Mary is the model for all ladies, as the enclosed garden of the Song of Solomon and the Earthly Paradise is the model for all gardens.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy Restricted.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.