Graduation Semester and Year

2013

Language

English

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Masters of Arts in Humanities

Department

Philosophy and Humanities

First Advisor

Jacqueline Stodnick

Abstract

This thesis examines the binaries of community/solitude and patriarchy/proto-feminism in the Old English Life of St. Mary of Egypt. For various reasons scholars such as Hugh Magennis believe that the Old English Life of St. Mary of Egypt, although included in a manuscript of Aelfric's Lives of Saints, was not by Aelfric. I argue that the character of Zosimus in this vita embodies the characteristics of community and patriarchy, which I call the Aelfrician model, and the character of Mary of Egypt embodies the characteristics of solitude and proto-feminism, which I call the non-Aelfrician model. I further argue that these two models, the Aelfrician and non-Aelfrician, are complementary in the Old English Life of St. Mary of Egypt.

Disciplines

Arts and Humanities | Philosophy

Comments

Degree granted by The University of Texas at Arlington

Download

Included in

Philosophy Commons

Share

COinS