Anthology of Ancient Medival Woman's Song

Book excerpt: This collection focuses on a woman's point of view in love poetry, and juxtaposes poems by women and poems about women to raise questions about how femininity is constructed. Although most medieval 'woman's songs' are either anonymous or male-authored lyrics in a popular style, the term can usefully be expanded to cover poetry composed by women, and poetry that is aristocratic or learned rather than popular. Poetry from ancient Greece and Rome that resonates with the medieval poems is also included here. Readers will find a range of voices, often echoing similar themes, as women rejoice or lament, praise or condemn, plead or curse, speak in jest or in earnest, to men and to each other, about love.