TY - BOOK ID - 113584659 TI - Transformative waters in late-medieval literature : from Aelred of Rievaulx to the Book of Margery Kempe PY - 2023 SN - 1800102941 180010295X 1843846128 PB - Cambridge : D.S. Brewer, DB - UniCat KW - Literature, Medieval KW - Religious literature, English KW - History and criticism. KW - Ancrene Wisse. KW - Jacob's Well. KW - John Trevisa. KW - On the Properties of Things. KW - Pearl. KW - The Orcherd of Syon. KW - allegory. KW - cleanliness. KW - crying. KW - divine access. KW - fluid. KW - gender. KW - grief. KW - immersion. KW - lamentation. KW - materiality. KW - medieval writings. KW - religious literature. KW - sacrament. KW - sacrifice. KW - scripture. KW - soul. KW - tears. KW - transformation. KW - water metaphor. KW - Water in literature. KW - Women authors. UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:113584659 AB - Women are frequently depicted as unpredictable, difficult to categorise and prone to transformation in medieval religious writings. Water is equally elusive: rivers, wells and seas slip and slide out of the readers' grasp as they alter in metaphorical meaning. This book considers a large span of watery images in a small cluster of late-medieval devotional writings by and for women, in order to explore the association between women and water in the medieval religious imagination. Using writings by Aelred of Rievaulx, Julian of Norwich and a number of anonymous translators - as well as medical, scientific, and encyclopaedic works - it argues for water as an all-purpose metaphor with a particularly resonance for them. ER -