Research interests
My thesis, currently titled ‘Building Legacies, Founding Dynasties: Motherhood, Construction, and Lineage in the Literature of the Middle Ages’, explores the relationship between female figures and dynastic power in the literature and historical writing of the Middle Ages. The thesis will focus on fictional characters, such as Melusine and the Lady of the Lake, who actively create in both the female role of mother and the masculine arena of construction, and on the depictions of historical figures, such as Æthelflæd, Queen of the Mercians, and St. Pega, who built and founded castles and monasteries. I want to explore the relationship between motherhood, construction, and lineage in the medieval period, and how such powerful women compared to their contemporaries in an era when women were generally subject to patriarchal control. I will take an interdisciplinary approach, situating the literature of the time within historical, social, and political contexts.
Ms Kirsty Bolton
Faculty of Arts and Humanities University of Southampton Avenue Campus Highfield Southampton SO17 1BF United Kingdom
