Afterlives of Rape in Medieval English Literature

Suzanne M. Edwards is Assistant Professor of English at Lehigh University, USA.

• Introduction: Discourses of Survival 1. Rape Survivors and Living Martyrs in the Lives of Holy Women2. Looking at 'Strange Women': Pedagogies of Sexual Violence in Anchoritic Literature3. Outrage Against Rape and the Battle Over Survival in Fourteenth-Century Legal Discourse and the Wife of Bath's Tale4. Ravished Wives, Sovereignty, and Political Reform Afterword: Afterlives in the Twenty-First Century

“In The Afterlives of Rape in Medieval English Literature, Suzanne M. Edwards explores representations of outliving rape in English saint’s lives, anchoritic texts, romances, and legal statutes from the eleventh through fifteenth centuries. … This book is valuable for medieval scholars, feminist scholars, and academics and activists who seek to combat sexual violence, as Afterlives provides important insight into theoretical conversations about gendered subjectivity, survival, and agency.” (Carissa M. Harris, Modern Philology, Vol. 115 (3), February, 2018)