Medieval Women′s Writing: Women and Writing

Medieval Women's Writing addresses these key questions:
Who were the first women authors in the English canon?
What do we mean by womens writing in the Middle Ages?
What do we mean by authorship?
How can studying medieval writing contribute to our understanding of womens literary history?

Diane Watt argues that female patrons, audiences, readers, and even subjects contributed to the production of texts and their meanings, whether written by men or women. Only an understanding of textual production as collaborative enables us to grasp fully womens engagement with literary culture. This radical rethinking of early womens literary history has major implications for all scholars working on medieval literature, on ideas of authorship, and on women's writing in later periods. The book will become standard reading for all students of these debates.