Table Of ContentTHE NEW MIDDLE AGES
BONNIE WHEELER, Series Editor
The New Middle Agesis a series dedicated to transdisciplinary studies of medieval cultures, with
particular emphasis on recuperating women’s history and on feminist and gender analyses.
This peer-reviewed series includesboth scholarly monographs and essay collections.
PUBLISHED BY PALGRAVE:
Women in the Medieval Islamic World: Power, Crossing the Bridge: Comparative Essays on
Patronage and Piety Medieval European and Heian Japanese
edited by Gavin R. G. Hambly Women Writers
edited by Barbara Stevenson and
The Ethics of Nature in the Middle Ages: Cynthia Ho
On Boccaccio’s Poetaphysics
by Gregory B. Stone Engaging Words: The Culture of Reading in
the Later Middle Ages
Presence and Presentation: Women in by Laurel Amtower
the Chinese Literati Tradition
by Sherry J. Mou Robes and Honor: The Medieval World of
Investiture
The Lost Love Letters of Heloise and Abelard:
edited by Stewart Gordon
Perceptions of Dialogue in Twelfth-Century France
by Constant J. Mews Representing Rape in Medieval and Early
Modern Literature
Understanding Scholastic Thought with Foucault
edited by Elizabeth Robertson and
by Philipp W. Rosemann
Christine M. Rose
For Her Good Estate: The Life of Elizabeth
Same Sex Love and Desire among Women in
de Burgh
the Middle Ages
by Frances A. Underhill
edited by Francesca Canadé Sautman and
Constructions of Widowhood and Virginity in Pamela Sheingorn
the Middle Ages
Sight and Embodiment in the Middle Ages:
edited by Cindy L. Carlson and Angela
Ocular Desires
Jane Weisl
by Suzannah Biernoff
Motherhood and Mothering in Anglo-Saxon
Listen, Daughter: The Speculum Virginum
England
and the Formation of Religious Women in
by Mary Dockray-Miller
the Middle Ages
Listening to Heloise: The Voice of a edited by Constant J. Mews
Twelfth-Century Woman
edited by Bonnie Wheeler Science, the Singular, and the Question of
Theology
The Postcolonial Middle Ages by Richard A. Lee, Jr.
edited by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen
Gender in Debate from the Early Middle Ages to
Chaucer’s Pardoner and Gender Theory: Bodies the Renaissance
of Discourse edited by Thelma S. Fenster and
by Robert S. Sturges Clare A. Lees
Malory’sMorte Darthur: Remaking Arthurian The Persistence of Medievalism: Narrative
Tradition Adventures in Contemporary Culture
by Catherine Batt by Angela Jane Weisl
The Vernacular Spirit: Essays on Medieval Capetian Women
Religious Literature edited by Kathleen D. Nolan
edited by Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski,
Duncan Robertson, and Nancy Warren Joan of Arc and Spirituality
edited by Ann W. Astell and Bonnie
Popular Piety and Art in the Late Middle Wheeler
Ages: Image Worship and Idolatry in England
1350–1500 The Texture of Society: Medieval Women in the
by Kathleen Kamerick Southern Low Countries
edited by Ellen E. Kittell and
Absent Narratives, Manuscript Textuality, and Mary A. Suydam
Literary Structure in Late Medieval England
by Elizabeth Scala Charlemagne’s Mustache: And Other
Cultural Clusters of a Dark Age
Creating Community with Food and Drink in by Paul Edward Dutton
Merovingian Gaul
Troubled Vision: Gender, Sexuality, and Sight
by Bonnie Effros
in Medieval Text and Image
Representations of Early Byzantine Empresses: edited by Emma Campbell and
Image and Empire Robert Mills
by Anne McClanan
Queering Medieval Genres
Encountering Medieval Textiles and Dress: by Tison Pugh
Objects, Texts, Images
Sacred Place in Early Medieval Neoplatonism
edited by Désirée G. Koslin and
by L. Michael Harrington
Janet Snyder
The Middle Ages at Work
Eleanor of Aquitaine: Lord and Lady
edited by Kellie Robertson and
edited by Bonnie Wheeler and John
Michael Uebel
Carmi Parsons
Chaucer’s Jobs
Isabel La Católica, Queen of Castile:
by David R. Carlson
Critical Essays
edited by David A. Boruchoff Medievalism and Orientalism: Three Essays on
Literature, Architecture, and Cultural Identity
Homoeroticism and Chivalry: Discourses
by John M. Ganim
of Male Same-Sex Desire in the Fourteenth
Century Queer Love in the Middle Ages
by Richard E. Zeikowitz by Anna Klosowska
Portraits of Medieval Women: Family, Performing Women in the Middle Ages: Sex,
Marriage, and Politics in England 1225–1350 Gender, and the Iberian Lyric
by Linda E. Mitchell by Denise K. Filios
Eloquent Virgins: From Thecla Necessary Conjunctions: The Social Self in
to Joan of Arc Medieval England
by Maud Burnett McInerney by David Gary Shaw
Visual Culture and the German Middle Ages On the Purification of Women: Churching in
edited by Kathryn Starkey and Northern France, 1100–1500
Horst Wenzel by Paula M. Rieder
Medieval Paradigms: Essays in Writers of the Reign of Henry II:
Honor of Jeremy duQuesnay Adams, Twelve Essays
Volumes 1 and 2 edited by Ruth Kennedy and Simon
edited by Stephanie Hayes-Healy Meecham-Jones
False Fables and Exemplary Truth in Later Lonesome Words: The Vocal Poetics
Middle English Literature of the Old English Lament and the
by Elizabeth Allen African-American Blues Song
by M.G. McGeachy
Ecstatic Transformation: On the Uses of Alterity
in the Middle Ages Performing Piety: Musical Culture in Medieval
by Michael Uebel English Nunneries
by Anne Bagnell Yardley
Sacred and Secular in Medieval and Early
Modern Cultures: New Essays
The Flight from Desire: Augustine and Ovid to
edited by Lawrence Besserman
Chaucer
by Robert R. Edwards
Tolkien’s Modern Middle Ages
edited by Jane Chance and Alfred K.
Mindful Spirit in Late Medieval
Siewers
Literature: Essays in Honor
Representing Righteous Heathens in Late of Elizabeth D. Kirk
Medieval England edited by Bonnie Wheeler
by Frank Grady
Medieval Fabrications: Dress, Textiles,
Byzantine Dress: Representations Clothwork, and Other Cultural Imaginings
of Secular Dress in Eighth-to-Twelfth edited by E. Jane Burns
Century Painting
by Jennifer L. Ball Was the Bayeux Tapestry Made in France?:
The Case for St. Florent of Saumur
The Laborer’s Two Bodies: Labor and the by George Beech
‘Work’ of the Text in Medieval Britain,
1350–1500 Women, Power, and Religious Patronage in the
by Kellie Robertson Middle Ages
by Erin L. Jordan
The Dogaressa of Venice, 1250–1500: Wife
and Icon Hybridity, Identity, and Monstrosity in
by Holly S. Hurlburt Medieval Britain: On Difficult Middles
by Jeremy Jerome Cohen
Logic, Theology, and Poetry in Boethius,
Abelard, and Alan of Lille: Words in the Medieval Go-betweens and Chaucer’s
Absence of Things Pandarus
by Eileen C. Sweeney by Gretchen Mieszkowski
The Theology of Work: Peter Damian and the The Surgeon in Medieval
Medieval Religious Renewal Movement English Literature
by Patricia Ranft by Jeremy J. Citrome
Temporal Circumstances: Form and History in Race, Class, and Gender in “Medieval”
the Canterbury Tales Cinema
by Lee Patterson edited by Lynn T. Ramey and
Tison Pugh
Erotic Discourse and Early English Religious
Writing Allegory and Sexual Ethics in the
by Lara Farina High Middle Ages
by Noah D. Guynn
Odd Bodies and Visible Ends in Medieval
Literature England and Iberia in the Middle Ages,
by Sachi Shimomura 12th–15th Century: Cultural,
Literary, and Political Exchanges
On Farting: Language and Laughter in the edited by María Bullón-Fernández
Middle Ages
by Valerie Allen The Medieval Chastity Belt: A Myth-Making
Process
Women and Medieval Epic: Gender, by Albrecht Classen
Genre, and the Limits of Epic
Masculinity Claustrophilia: The Erotics of Enclosure in
edited by Sara S. Poor and Medieval Literature
Jana K. Schulman by Cary Howie
CLAUSTROPHILIA
THE EROTICS OF ENCLOSURE IN
MEDIEVAL LITERATURE
Cary Howie
CLAUSTROPHILIA
© Cary Howie, 2007.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2007 978-1-4039-7197-5
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any
manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief
quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
First published in 2007 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN™
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Companies and representatives throughout the world.
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave
Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd.
Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom
and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European
Union and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-53332-9 ISBN 978-0-230-60414-8 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230604148
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Howie, Cary.
Claustrophilia : the erotics of enclosure in medieval literature /
Cary Howie.
p. cm.—(New Middle Ages)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-349-53332-9
1. Literature, Medieval—History and criticism. 2. Claustrophilia in
literature. 3. Sex in literature. I. Title.
PN682.C545H69 2007
809(cid:2).933538—dc22 2006051355
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
First edition: May 2007
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For at least four of her six years she had been aware of how close at
hand everything was, of how whatever she wanted tended to be wher-
ever she was. “Come out,” Marcy said. Why should she? What was
in the bedroom that was not in the closet?
—Barbara Gowdy, Mister Sandman
My answer is as clear as sunrise, but conveniently smaller.
—A. L. Kennedy, “On Having More Sense”
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgments x
Introduction 1
Chapter 1 The Edge of Enclosure 11
Chapter 2 The Verge of the Visible 37
Chapter 3 Spaced Out 69
Chapter 4 Lyric Enclosures 103
Chapter 5 Nothing Between 123
In Closing 139
Notes 153
Works Cited 183
Index 193
