Description
Book SynopsisSelected by Choice magazine as an Outstanding Academic Title
Unveiling Eve is the first feminist inquiry into the Hebrew poetry and prose forms cultivated in Muslim and Christian Spain, Italy, and Provence in the eleventh through fourteenth centuries. In the Jewish Middle Ages, writing was an exclusively male competence, and textual institutions such as the study of scripture, mysticism, philosophy, and liturgy were men''s sanctuaries from which women were banished. These domains of male expertise—alongside belles lettres, on which Rosen''s book focuses—served as virtual laboratories for experimenting with concepts of femininity and masculinity, hetero- and homosexuality, feminization and virilization, transvestism and transsexuality. Reviewing texts as varied as love lyric, love stories, marriage debates, rhetorical contests, and liturgical and moralistic pieces, Tova Rosen considers the positions and positioning of female figures and female voices wi
Trade Review
"Rosen's discourse is dense but enlightening; in a clear and nuanced fashion she demonstrates the benefits to be gained through gender premises in literary pursuits. . . . Highly recommended."" * Choice *
"Rosen wears her vast learning lightly and well. She brings to bear on the texts an enormous erudition in the various genres of Hebrew writing from medieval Spain which served as intertextual web for the poetry as well as Arabic literature, Latin and medieval European Romance literatures, and even the early European novel." * Daniel Boyarin, University of California, Berkeley *
Table of Contents
Preface
1 No-Woman's-Land: Medieval Hebrew Literature and Feminist Criticism
2 Gazing at the Gazelle: Woman in Male Love Lyric
3 Veils and Wiles: Poetry as Woman
4 Poor Soul, Pure Soul: The Soul as Woman
5 Domesticating the Enemy: Misogamy in a Jewish Marriage Debate
6 Among Men: Homotextuality in the Maqama
7 Clothes Reading: Cross-Dressing in the Maqama
8 Circumcised Cinderella: Jewish Gender Trouble
Afterword
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index
