Images of Women in the Nineteenth-Century Anglo-Saxon Revival

Authors

• Karen Louise Foster, University of Kentucky

Document Type

Dissertation

Abstract

Nineteenth-century interest in the late Anglo-Saxon, or pre-conquest woman has been almost entirely erased from literary history. This dissertation recovers nineteenth century interest in the late Anglo-Saxon woman (between the eighth and eleventh centuries) in an analytical and descriptive survey which points out nineteenth-century roots of twentieth-century biases that continue to shape Anglo-Saxon scholarship. Nineteenth-century writers recovered Anglo-Saxon portrayals of women in various ways: by writing histories of Anglo-Saxon times; through translation of Beowulf, Judith, Juliana and Elene; and in writing historical fiction. In every instance, recovery meant reconstruction of the past. Nineteenth-century reconstructions of the Anglo-Saxon time period have given the twentieth century a legacy of antifeminist biases. I challenge these biases, not only to clear a path for better understanding of women's roles in Anglo-Saxon times but, also, to understand more fully the nineteenth-century's rejection of Anglo-Saxon women in favor of later, post-conquest women, who were preferred for their submissiveness, loyalty to domestic routines, and their social, legal and physical dependence on men.

Date Produced

1992

Date Available Online

2026

Archival?

Archival

Recommended Citation

Foster, Karen Louise, "Images of Women in the Nineteenth-Century Anglo-Saxon Revival" (1992). Archived Theses and Dissertations. 15.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/arcetd/15