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The Middle English University of North Dakota UND Scholarly Commons Theses and Dissertations Theses, Dissertations, and Senior Projects January 2014 Dreaming Of Masculinity: The iddM le English "Pearl" And The aM sculine Space Of New Jerusalem Kirby Lund Follow this and additional works at: https://commons.und.edu/theses Recommended Citation Lund, Kirby, "Dreaming Of Masculinity: The iddM le English "Pearl" And The asM culine Space Of New Jerusalem" (2014). Theses and Dissertations. 1682. https://commons.und.edu/theses/1682 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, and Senior Projects at UND Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of UND Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. DREAMING OF MASCULINITY: THE MIDDLE ENGLISH PEARL AND THE MASCULINE SPACE OF NEW JERUSALEM by Kirby A. Lund Bachelor of Arts, University of North Dakota, 2011 A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the University of North Dakota in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Grand Forks, North Dakota December 2014 © 2014 Kirby Lund ii This thesis, submitted by Kirby Lund in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts from the University of North Dakota, has been read by the Faculty Advisory Committee under whom the work has been done and is hereby approved. ____________________________________ Michelle M. Sauer, Chairperson ____________________________________ Sheryl O’Donnell, Committee Member ____________________________________ Melissa Gjellstad, Committee Member This thesis is being submitted by the appointed advisory committee as having met all of the requirements of the School of Graduate Studies at the University of North Dakota and is hereby approved. ____________________________________ Wayne Swisher Dean of the School of Graduate Studies ____________________________________ Date iii PERMISSION Title Dreaming of Masculinity: The Middle English Pearl and the Masculine Space of New Jerusalem Department English Degree Master of Arts In presenting this thesis in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a graduate degree from the University of North Dakota, I agree that the library of this University shall make it freely available for inspection. I further agree that permissions for extensive copying for scholarly purposes may be granted by the professor who supervised my thesis work or, in her absence, by the Chairperson of the department or the dean of the School of Graduate Studies. It is understood that any copying or publication or other use of this thesis or part thereof for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. It is also understood that due recognition shall be given to me and to the University of North Dakota in any scholarly use which may be made of any material in my thesis. Kirby Lund November 4, 2014 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS………………………………………………….….vi ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………….……..vii INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………..……viii CHAPTER I. BACKGROUND INFORMATION……………………….………1 II. LITERATURE REVIEW…………………………………….……35 III. MASCULINE REPRESENTATIONS OF SPACE IN PEARL……………………………………………….…….…..76 IV. MASCULINE SPATIAL PRACTICES OF PEARL……………………………………………….…………….108 CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………..139 BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………..142 v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would first like to thank Dr. Michelle M. Sauer who supervised the creation of this academic project. Her encouragement throughout my undergraduate career at the University of North Dakota inspired me to pursue a graduate degree, and her feedback and support during the writing process were very much appreciated. I want to further extend my appreciation to Dr. Sheryl O’Donnell and Dr. Melissa Gjellstad. Their careful readings and honest assessments of my work improved it greatly, and I thank each of them kindly for their valued input. Special thanks to go my family—my parents, my grandparents, and my sister and brother-in-law and their children—who supported me throughout this process. Their constant encouragement drove me to undertake this project, and in completing it, I know I have made them all proud—even if my coarsely-explained version of gender theory makes some of them blush. Moreover, I owe special thanks to my partner, Renee. Throughout the writing process, she provided me with helpful insights and strengthened my resolve to finish the project. I can’t begin to imagine how much longer this thesis would have taken to complete were it not for her advice and support. I also want to thank my friends—the Guild, the Blue Moose, and everyone in between— who helped to keep me working by continually asking how my thesis writing was going. I always knew they cared about my work and wanted to see me do well, and for that, I wish to show them my deepest gratitude. Finally, I would like to thank the British Library, specifically Jackie Brown, for granting me permission to use an image from the Cotton Nero A.x manuscript in my thesis. vi ABSTRACT This thesis examines the gendering of spaces, particularly the city of New Jerusalem in the fourteenth-century Middle English dream vision Pearl. Earlier scholars have gendered this space as feminine based on the appearance of the city landscape. Instead, I examine the city in terms of both form and function to argue that New Jerusalem is a masculine space. In doing so, I hope to recognize the patriarchal control in the poem to demonstrate the masculine construction of the space, not to reinscribe patriarchy as a construct. This analysis combines the spatial theories of Henri Lefebvre and Doreen Massey with performative gender construction concepts as defined by Judith Butler. Ultimately, this gendered analysis of Pearl’s city illuminates the Church’s defense against the Lollard heresy of the fourteenth century on the topic of the sex of priests in the clergy, thereby demonstrating the danger of a feminine construction of the city space. vii INTRODUCTION Gender is an incredibly complex concept that is often and perhaps too simplistically broken down into a black-and-white dichotomy between what is feminine and what is masculine. To modern scholars, however, gender is based on an accumulation of a person’s gender performances—activities to which a given culture has attributed a masculine or feminine gender. In this idea of gender construction, if a person enacts more masculine gender performances than feminine ones, we would say that the person’s gender is masculine. I will be discussing masculinity at length in this academic project, but perhaps a more fitting term might be “masculinities,” as there can potentially be several types of masculinity within a given culture. What we understand as masculinity in modern American society is likely to be a great deal different than the idea of masculinity in a culture halfway around the world. Just as the meaning of masculinity shifts between two different cultures, this definition can also change across time periods. The fluidity of masculinity can also be seen in the flexibility of space, making these two theories quite compatible. Gender scholars say that a person’s gender is constructed when that person enacts certain gender performances, and in much the same way, the gender of a space is constructed by examining the gendered visual codes found within that space and the gender performances of that space’s inhabitants. Gender and space complement each other so well that they can actually have a reflexive relationship: the gender of a person within a space can affect the gendering of a space, or the gender of viii a space can affect the gender of a person within that space. This complex relationship can be seen in the Middle English dream vision, Pearl. Feminist scholars have been examining Pearl for decades, and they all seem to come to the same conclusion: the space of New Jerusalem, the heavenly city in the poem, is gendered feminine. Jill Mann contends that the fortress of the heavenly city is a feminine space because of the city’s resemblance to the Virgin Mary’s female body. The wall of the city, she claims, acts as a metaphorical womb to offer protection to those within the space. Sarah Stanbury also asserts that the heavenly city is a feminine space, explaining that the city doesn’t so much represent the Virgin Mary’s body, but rather the female body of the Maiden in the text. Stanbury even goes so far as to say that the heavenly city is the Maiden’s female body that has been formally ordered and preserved in stone. As we can see from these interpretations, these scholars primarily deal with the form of the heavenly city while neglecting the function of the city space. An examination of Pearl’s New Jerusalem in terms of both form and function reveals that the city space is actually masculine, not feminine. While I find these interpretations very interesting, I consider these readings flawed, as they overlook the function of the heavenly city as a patriarchal space meant for the control of women. Pearl is a product of fourteenth-century England, which we know was a highly-patriarchal time period and culture. In simply looking past this important detail, I believe that these earlier interpretations of Pearl’s city space, especially Stanbury’s, to be somewhat flawed. To construct a space’s gender, we need to examine the visual gender codes of the space while also analyzing the gender performances happening within the space. By describing the
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